Explore our challenge prizes
Want to help solve some of society’s biggest problems? You’re in the right place
This could be your opportunity to help solve some of the world’s biggest problems.
Challenge Works supports smart ideas and ingenious solutions, wherever they come from. We believe inventors can come from any background or sector, so we work to break down barriers, support long-term success and nurture innovation talent every step of the way.
We have worked with thousands of innovator teams and dozens of funders to find solutions to problems, draw attention to societal issues, and bring about real change.
Read on to find out more about our current and past portfolio of challenge prizes.
Water Efficiency Lab 2
The Water Efficiency Lab (WEL) is a challenge-led competition to attract innovative solutions to specific water efficiency challenges and unlock progress on water efficient technology, processes and approaches.
Water Discovery Challenge 2
The Water Discovery Challenge 2 is a £7.5 million competition to accelerate the development and adoption of new innovations for the water sector.
Metascience Novelty Indicators Challenge
The Metascience Novelty Indicators Challenge is a global initiative to develop and validate scalable indicators that can identify novelty in research.
Water Breakthrough Challenge 6
The fifth round of the Water Breakthrough Challenge ‘Breakthrough 5’ is part of the Ofwat Innovation Fund, a pioneering programme unleashing waves of innovation in the water sector.
Water Efficiency Lab 1
The £25 million Water Efficiency Lab’s first competition, WEL 1, seeks data-driven innovative solutions to give households and businesses actionable insights and tools to cut their water consumption.
Good Start Challenge
The Good Start Challenge is a global challenge to accelerate innovation to promote the wellbeing of parents of children aged 0-6 years
Tackling Health Inequalities: The West Yorkshire Mayor’s Big Ideas Challenge
Tackling health inequalities: the Mayor’s big ideas challenge is a £1 million challenge funded by the West Yorkshire Combined Authority to accelerate innovative solutions, products, or services to overcome health inequalities among communities in the region.
Smart Data Challenge Prize
The Smart Data Challenge Prize is a £600,000 challenge prize funded by the Department for Business & Trade, designed to identify and develop Smart Data use cases across the economy.
Manchester Prize Round 2
The second Manchester Prize will be awarded to the most innovative and impactful AI solution enabling the UK to accelerate progress towards a net zero energy system.
Water Breakthrough Challenge 5
The fifth round of the Water Breakthrough Challenge ‘Breakthrough 5’ is part of the Ofwat Innovation Fund, a pioneering programme unleashing waves of innovation in the water sector.
Detroit City Challenge
We are looking for innovators to demonstrate solutions that decrease fossil fuel use and reduce costs of freight operations in Detroit’s Eastern Market.
Venice City Challenge
We are looking for innovators to create solutions that increase the use of existing low and zero-carbon transport modes in the city of Venice.
Challenge prizes
Discover how challenge prizes work, why they attract the right innovators and how they can help solve urgent problems where solutions are lacking.