300 years ago, in 1714, the British parliament established the world’s first challenge prize. It offered £20,000 (the equivalent to over £2 million today) to anyone who could discover a practical and accurate method for determining a ship’s longitude at sea. Current methods were inaccurate, leading to many shipping disasters such as the 1707 Scilly naval disaster, where over 1,400 sailors died due to navigation errors.

What ensued was a race to discover, create, refine, test and launch a method that could determine longitude within half a degree. Overseen by the Board of Longitude, the prize was eventually won by John Harrison, a self-educated carpenter and clockmaker from Yorkshire. 

Fast forward 300 or so years to 2014, when we launched the Longitude Prize on AMR in partnership with the UK government. After a public campaign and vote, which aired on the BBC, the chosen focus was antimicrobial resistance; specifically, the prize sought a simple way for doctors to distinguish between bacterial and viral illnesses. The prize ran for ten years and resulted in a point-of-care diagnostic kit to help doctors better target antibiotic treatments – created by winners Sysmex Astrego. The kit is on permanent display at London’s Science Museum.

The Longitude Prize on Dementia, awarded earlier this year, will help people with dementia live independently for longer – thanks to AI smart glasses created by winners CrossSense. They plan to bring their solution to market soon and discussions are underway for the device to be added to the display at the Science Museum.

The third modern Longitude Prize – seeking discoveries that aid treatment for motor neurone disease (ALS) – is now underway, and has already drawn interest from the world’s greatest minds, and been covered across the BBC, The Guardian, and The Times.

Winning the Longitude Prize doesn’t just solve some of the world’s biggest issues. Nor does it just hand out well-deserved cash: it brings a level of profile and prestige that is unparalleled.

So what’s next? My team at Challenge Works, the organisation behind the Longitude Prize series, is thinking about just that. We’re embarking on a search, and we’d love for you to join us.

What tough problems are crying out for solutions? What new invention could change the world for the better? Where could the glory, prestige and the cash of a Longitude Prize oil the wheels of invention?

We have some ideas of our own: in the coming weeks you’ll see me and my colleagues sharing some provocations: ideas for the next Longitude Prize that we’ve had or heard in the course of our work that we are excited about right now. And then, over the following months we’re going to be refining and adding to this list by drawing on some of the greatest minds out there – visionaries, futurists, scientists, mavericks, and funders – to uncover the most prizeable problems and topics.

We’ll be running expert workshops in June and July to explore opportunities for innovation. While these aren’t public events we’ll be talking about them as widely as possible. If you have relevant expertise and would like to participate, please reach out.

And we’ll be networking behind the scenes with all the critical people and organisations we need to bring these prizes to reality. Longitude Prizes need sponsors – and fundraising is a big part of the work we do behind the scenes. But they also need expert judges, spokespeople, scientific consultants and much much more.

Our team will also be talking publicly, online and at events – both about the ideas they have, and about the track record of Longitude and our 100+ other innovation challenge prizes.

So, our ask to you. We want to talk to you if:

• You have unique insights into tough scientific and technical challenges that could lead to outsized public impact.
• You can bring unique capabilities to the delivery of these future prizes.
• You have money and want to fund something that will have a huge impact and leave a legacy for generations.

If you’re already in our network, look out for our call.

And if you’re not – please reach out. We want to write this next chapter in the Longitude Prize together.