Open innovation can change the world

What is a Longitude Prize?

Longitude Prize Programmes are designed and delivered by Challenge Works, Longitude Prizes incentivise and support scientists, researchers, and innovators to find practical solutions to pressing challenges, such as antibiotic resistance, dementia, and other global issues.

The specific challenge for a Longitude Prize is determined based on the critical needs and priorities of society. The prize offers substantial financial and non-financial rewards to successful teams or individuals across their journey and offers one grand prize and support to a team who can develop a groundbreaking solution that meets the defined criteria.

Our Longitude Prizes

The Longitude Prize on AMR

May 2014 – September 2022

£8 million prize pot

We are proud to announce that the £8 million Longitude Prize on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) has been awarded to Sysmex Astrego for the PA-100 AST System. The game-changing solution is a novel point-of-care diagnostic test that rapidly and accurately identifies the presence of a bacterial infection and the right antibiotic to prescribe.

Find out more at amr.longitudeprize.org

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The Longitude Prize on Dementia

September 2022– September 2026

£4.42 million prize pot

The Longitude Prize on Dementia will be awarded to the creator of a breakthrough technology that learns from a person living with dementia, adapting and compensating for their condition as it progresses, and enabling them to continue living independently for longer. We announced the five finalist teams in October 2024, via BBC One’s The One Show.

Find out more about the five finalists

The Longitude Prize on ALS

We are currently designing a global Challenge Prize on ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). ALS is a devastating condition with no cure, affecting 1 in 300 of us. We believe a Challenge Prize can drive developments in ALS treatment and raise awareness of this life-limiting disease.

Find out more here

Some of our partners

Partner with us

Our open innovation competition models enable governments, organisations and philanthropic funders an effective way to reach diverse and innovative talent from across the globe.

We believe that systemic change is brought about through radical thinking and collaboration. So we operate where innovation and social impact meet.

Spanning government agencies, consultancies and industry bodies, as well as those seeking solutions to societal problems, like charities and social purpose organisations.

Get in touch for more information

The Longitude Prize Programme Committee

The Longitude Committee features experts from across the scientific and industrial world. The Committee are responsible for awarding the final award of the Longitude Prize competitions we run.

Dame Wendy Hall

Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton

Andrew Cohen

Head of BBC Science Unit

Andrew Dunnett

Director, Vodafone Foundation

Professor David Delpy

Chair, Strategic Advisory Board, UK National Quantum Technologies Programme and Emeritus Professor of Biomedical Optics, UCL

Gisela Abbam

Chair, General Pharmaceutical Council, Global Goodwill Ambassador & Freelance Consultant

Indro Mukerjee

CEO, Innovate UK

Kate Lee

CEO, Alzheimer’s Society

Lord Martin Rees

Astronomer Royal

Ravi Gurumurthy

CEO, Nesta

Professor Rifat Atun

Professor of Global Health Systems, Harvard School of Public Health

Roger Highfield

Director of External Affairs, Science Museum

Dame Sally Davies

UK Special Envoy on Antimicrobial Resistance

Dr. Tim Jinks

Head of Drug Resistant Infections Priority Program, Wellcome Trust

Interested in running an open innovation competition?

Get in touch with us

Learn more about Challenge Prizes

History of the Longitude Prize

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Longitude Prize of 1714

Not being able to measure longitude on the sea left ships struggling to stay on course with serious consequences when they didn’t. Merchants and captains petitioned the British Parliament to solve the issue of navigating at sea, which culminated in the government issuing The Longitude Act offering a £20,000 prize (approx £1.5m today) to anyone who could solve it. Over a decade later, a clockmaker called John Harrison, solved this issue developing a gadget called a chronometer, which aspects of his invention are still used today. In the end, however, neither he, nor his family, were ever awarded the full prize money.

Longitude Prize on AMR

300 years after the original Longitude Prize, a new challenge targeting antimicrobial resistance was set up by the UK Government, Innovate UK and Nesta/Challenge Works. It’s estimated that in 2019, 1.9 million people died from an antibiotic resistant infection or superbug, and it’s estimated that 10 million people a year will die from a drug resistant infection by 2050. In the absence of new antibiotics, and to preserve the effects of the ones we have, accurate and fast diagnostic testing is essential. This prize sought a new diagnostic test that could rapidly tell whether an infection is bacterial, if an antibiotic is needed to treat it, and if so, which specific antibiotic would be the most suitable. Hundreds of teams have worked with the Longitude Prize on AMR to invent and create rapid tests using diverse technologies, creating life-saving technologies. The Longitude Prize for AMR came to a close in September 2022. We are still awaiting a result.

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Longitude Prize on Dementia

The Longitude Prize on Dementia, launched in September 2022 and is a £4.1 million prize to drive the creation of personalised, technology-based tools that are co-created with people living with the early stages of dementia, helping them live independently for longer. £3.1 million will be awarded in seed funding and development grants to the most promising solutions, with a £1 million first prize to be awarded in 2026. Funded by the UK’s leading dementia charity, Alzheimer’s Society, and Innovate UK – the UK’s innovation agency, innovators can enter their solutions to the prize until January 2023. The prize has been designed and is being delivered by innovation experts Challenge Works. The prize has received generous support from three UK donors: The Hunter Foundation, CareTech Foundation and Heather Corrie. In addition, the prize has received funding from the Medical Research Council which funds research at the forefront of science to prevent illness, develop therapies and improve human health.

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