Smart incentives for social innovation

Some of NESTA’s lessons on challenge prizes

“None of us is as smart as all of us”

Prospective Retrospective

Open

Closed

“A £1 million innovation prize for community-led responses to climate change.”

Source: Smart incentives for people-powered innovation. How to deliver the Big green Challenge prize approach. NESTA

1. A challenge prize

2. Outcome-focused

3. Staged process

4. Not prescriptive

5. Open

Five

Prin

cipl

esThe staged process of the Big Green Challenge

...THE GREEN VALLEYS

10 finalists4 winners

…HOUSEHOLD ENERGY SERVICES

At least 10-46% reduction on baseline in the BGC year

At least 4860 t Co 2yr* in future years

*CO2 reductions in the Big Green Challenge year were monitored by CRed on behalf of NESTA. This data provides a conservative estimate of reductions achieved by Finalists across the Big Green Challenge year. The emissions reductions achieved, now and in the future, may well be higher than the reductions reported here.

BGC changed behaviour – key to tackling complex social issues

The importance of asking good questions

Lessons learned

Reward outcomes not activity

Lessons learned

Financial incentives aren’t everything

Lessons learned

• What issues should we tackle through prizes? What are the best questions?

• What’s the right scale for a challenge prize? How elastic is funding?

• How can we measure outcomes more effectively?

• Who participates in prizes? Can we access new problem solvers?

What’s next?

Practical Policy & Research

The Big Green Challenge

Mass Localism

Social Challenge Prize GuideMake It Local

Big Green Challenge evaluations

Buying Power: SBRI health-check

Neighbourhood Challenge

100% Open - Corporate open innovation challenges

<£10k £10m £100m+

Simple, single-product or service

Characteristics of different scale inducement prizes

Complex, paradigm-shifting inventions

Specific groups: eng students, “makers”

Individuals

Improve one aspect of a product

US Air Force helicopter abseiling glove

Teams, small businesses

Larger communities or businesses

Big business or well-financed ventures

Heavy tech investment; infrastructure deployment

The general public

Global audiences; world leading firms

Size of prize£100k £1m

Omincompete Global Security Challenge

NESTA Big Green Challenge

Type of challenges

Target groups

Likely type of entrant

Requirements for winning

Real-life examples

Branson Climate challenge, Saltire prize

Gates Foundation malaria vaccine APC, Archon X-P

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