The Prize is one of a number of innovation prizes under Ideas to Impact (I2I), a UK Department for International Development (DFID)-funded programme established to test the value of using innovation prizes for international development, often to encourage people to act differently over months or years. An innovation prize offers a reward to whoever can first and/or most effectively solve or meet a defined challenge.
Two key types of innovation prize are recognition and inducement prizes. Unlike recognition prizes, which reward past achievement, inducement prizes, such as those run by I2I, define award criteria in advance to spur innovation towards a predefined goal. I2I defines its innovation inducement prizes as ‘a financial incentive that induces change through competition’.
A@S was delivered by IMC Worldwide, with the Integrated Development Society Nepal (IDSNepal)/Centre for Green Economy Development (CGED) Nepal/Southasia Institute of Advanced Studies (SIAS) consortium as the local implementing agent; and was designed by the programme team consisting of IMC (Prize management), Blue Globe (Prize design) and the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) (adaptation technical lead). As the programme’s evaluator, Itad is supporting I2I to understand if the innovation prizes delivered under the programme worked as intended, and when and where they could be useful as a funding mechanism for international development, compared with other forms of funding, such as grants.
