Popular searches

About Nesta

Nesta is a research and innovation foundation. We apply our deep expertise in applied methods to design, test and scale solutions to some of the biggest challenges of our time, working across the innovation lifecycle.

More about us

Making Britain the innovation nation: why we should launch a ‘British Nobel Prize’

Nesta and Challenge Works at the Labour Party Conference
27 Sep 2026 14:30 – 15:30
Arena Room Ness, Convention Centre - Liverpool Experience Campus (secure zone)

Science, innovation and technology are not just areas of competitive advantage for the UK, they are a path to good growth and national renewal. Launching a ‘British Nobel Prize’ is one practical idea that would enable the UK to harness and reward the best talent and ideas, wherever they come from, in service of solving big societal challenges.

Join Nesta and Challenge Works at this year’s Labour Party Conference to discuss why we should launch a British incentive prize of equivalent stature to the ‘Nobel Prize.’ The session will explore a bold proposal for a new awards system equivalent to Sweden’s Nobel Prize but unlike Nobel, this would look to incentivise future solutions rather than past achievements. Discussions will focus on what future-focused prizes could achieve, why they’re needed now and how they could be used to stimulate, support and champion innovation.

Our expert panel will be chaired by Joe Owen, director of policy and government partnerships at Nesta and includes Tris Dyson, founder and executive director of Challenge Works, Iain Bundred, director of policy and public affairs at the BBC, Roger Highfield, science director, Science Museum and Hannah Madan, co-founder & COO, Prima Mente.

This event will take place on Sunday 27 September in Arena Room Ness - Liverpool Experience Campus (secure zone) from 14:30-15:30 BST. Add to your calendar.

Speakers

Joe Owen headshot

Joe Owen

Joe is Director of Policy and Government Partnerships at Nesta. Joe was a senior civil servant in the Cabinet Office, where he worked on a wide range of economic and domestic policy issues including climate, regional inequality and migration. He also worked at the Institute for Government, as both Director of Impact and the director of the Institute's Brexit programme. He is a senior fellow at the Institute. Joe has also worked with a number of government departments as a consultant, including the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Defence and he spent a year at Transport for London in its strategy team.

Tris Dyson

Tris Dyson

Tris has led Challenge Works from its origins as a Nesta experiment to being a global hub for expertise and insight on challenge prizes. His aim is to deliver challenge prizes that inspire and enable the development of high impact innovations Before joining Nesta, Tris co-founded and led the social enterprise Tempo and was included in the first cohort of the Observer’s New Radicals. Tris has also run a Welsh university think tank, founded a social sector consultancy and was a Teach First Geography teacher complete with corduroy jacket.

1516579722951

Iain Bundred

Iain joined the BBC in the spring of 2025 from YouTube, where he had been the Head of Public Policy for UK and Northern Europe. Before joining YouTube, Iain worked in a variety of comms roles for the advertising network WPP and the Labour Party, including serving as an adviser to Prime Minister Gordon Brown in Downing Street.

241127RAE281

Roger Highfield

Roger Highfield is a member of the Board of Longitude and Science Director of the Science Museum Group. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Royal Society of Biology and Academy of Medical Sciences, a visiting professor of public engagement at the Dunn School, University of Oxford, and Department of Chemistry, UCL, and a former member of the UKRI-Medical Research Council. Roger was the Science Editor of The Daily Telegraph for two decades and the Editor of New Scientist between 2008 and 2011. He has had thousands of articles published in newspapers and magazines, and has also written or coauthored ten popular science books, including two bestsellers. For his doctorate, Roger was the first person to bounce a neutron off a soap bubble.

square

Hannah Madan

Hannah is Co-Founder and COO at Prima Mente, an AI biology company focused on the brain; to understand it at a molecular level, protect it from neurological disease, and enhance it in health. She leads across people, product, partnerships and operations, with a track record of building and scaling early-stage biotech companies, having been employee number 1, 3, 12 and 70. Her work has consistently centred on developing products that translate biological insight into real-world applications, from precision medicine to clinical trials. Hannah holds a PhD from Queen Mary University of London, where she studied the link between diabetes and bowel cancer, and a degree in pharmacology from University of Bath. She also represented England in netball.

Event information

27 Sep 2026 14:30 – 15:30

A powerful ecosystem for innovation

We extend our impact through two specialised units that help people and organisations to solve complex problems and achieve their goals.

BIT

BIT helps clients from government, nonprofits and the private sector to improve people’s lives through our empirical problem solving and deep understanding of human behaviour.

Challenge Works

Challenge Works designs and runs challenge prizes to spark innovation in science, technology and society.