Challenge Prizes
Challenge prizes offer a reward to whoever can first or most effectively meet a defined challenge. They are a tried and tested way to support and accelerate change in the world. They are also making a comeback, as governments and funders look for better ways to solve problems, create value and exploit the opportunities presented by collaborative technologies.
Read on for our selection of examples, videos, publications and blogs that explain more about Challenge prizes.
Examples of Challenge Prizes
Nesta's guide to historical challenge prizes
Selected Innovation Prizes and Rewards Programs KEI Research Note 2008:1 (over 100 examples covering everything from margarine to the moon)
NHS Innovation Challenge Prizes
DARPA Grand Challenge (driverless cars)
Listverse: 10 Fascinating Prize Challenges
Videos
US Government Webinars on Challenges and Prizes (13 videos)
The Longitude tele-movie (21 x 10min episodes)
Publications
Nesta, Social Challenge Prize Guide
Nesta, Challenge Prizes Landscape Review
Nesta, Neighbourhood Challenge – learning from innovative communities
Nesta, Mass Localism
McKinsey & Co, “And the winner is …” Capturing the promise of philanthropic prizes
White House, Guidance on the Use of Challenges and Prizes to Promote Open Government
Heidi Williams, Innovation Inducement Prizes: Connecting Research to Policy, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 2012
Joseph E Stiglitz, Scrooge and intellectual property rights BMJ, December 2006
Deborah D. Stine Federally Funded Innovation Inducement Prizes CRS Report for Congress - June 2009
Liam Brunt, Josh Lerner and Tom Nicholas Inducement Prizes and Innovation Centre for Economic Policy Research - Discussion Paper Series No. 6917
Abdullah Gök The impact of innovation inducement prizes, Nesta Working Paper 13/18
Blog posts
Centre for Challenge Prizes launches
Bright ideas to tackle unemployment
Presentations
Prize and challenge architecture Department of Health & Human Services, basics of designing prize and challenge competitions
Prizes to Pull Innovation into International Development DAI, ideas on prize design
“And the Winner Is…” Summary presentation of McKinsey Report