Deadline: Ongoing

Applications are open for the Heywood Foundation Public Policy Prize 2021. Do you see possibilities created out of the challenges of COVID-19, that society, citizens and policymakers should think about and seize? The Heywood Foundation has created this two-part Challenge Prize to stimulate this discussion, and to create an additional channel of ideas back to UK policymakers.

The first challenge prize is for spotting key opportunities or possibilities created by the COVID-19 crisis: What is a key challenge or opportunity presented by the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences?

Short answers are encouraged (no more than 300 words). Your answer might capture a seemingly simple detail of public or private sector practice that you think doesn’t make sense or could be made much better. Or it could describe a big change in how we could live – or are living – our lives, or how our economy or society works. You don’t have to have a solution: sometimes just identifying a problem or opportunity is an important insight in its own right. As such, they are setting prizes for the most innovative, surprising, or incisive identification of a challenge or opportunity created by the current crisis.

The second challenge prize seeks to find innovative answers to the challenges or opportunities presented: In the case of a problem, how might we fix it? In the case of an opportunity, how do we capitalise on it?

This could be a solution to a challenge you have identified, or it could be an idea in response to the challenges identified by others.  Your idea might be a quick plan for a fix of a frustrating but ubiquitous piece of bureaucracy, or a process linked to handling the current response to coronavirus. It could be an idea for a better way of getting the economy back on its feet faster, or reducing the social or economic impact on a particular group or sector. Or perhaps it is an idea you have had for a while for improving our society, or environment, and that you think’s time has finally come. Submissions are limited to 1,000 words, with a short summary at the start.

Prizes

• Question 1:
  • Top Prize: £5,000
  • 10 Runner-ups: £500 each
• Question 2:
  • Top Prize: £25,000
  • Second Prize: £10,000
  • Third Prize: £5,000
  • 15 Runner-ups: £1,000 each

Eligibility

• Open to innovators and critical thinkers around the world.
• Applicant may respond to one of the questions above.

Application

Please submit your answers in the form. You do not need to submit answers to both questions, although you are most welcome to. In the case that you submit an answer to question 2 but not question 1, please make clear what the problem or opportunity is that you are addressing.

Click here to apply

For more information, visit Heywood Foundation.