Martin Rees on the 2017 Hay Competition of Literature in Hay on Wye, UK
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The Oscars. The Booker prize. The Nobels. The award ceremonies that punctuate our 12 months are all inherently backward-looking, celebrating previous achievements. However there may be one other kind of award, one that appears to the long run – the problem prize. Such prizes don’t recognise previous successes, relatively incentivise future ones.
The concept is straightforward: a problem is chosen – with a clear-cut goal – and a jackpot is obtainable to whoever first reaches that objective. Examples embrace the Longitude Prize on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), which has…
