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To address special problems and challenges in biomedical research, NIH competitions and prizes solicit, showcase, and support participants’ transformative solutions and achievements.
Prizes and challenges are among the tools used by NIH and other federal agencies to advance open government, innovation, and ultimately our missions.
What is a challenge or prize competition?
A challenge or prize competition is a type of project that allows the public to solve challenges presented by federal agencies and receive awards for the best solutions. The process boils down to three steps:
- Agency announces a prize competition and invites the public to solve it.
- Participants create and submit solutions to the problem.
- Agency evaluates solutions and awards prizes to the best ones.
How do challenges and prize competitions vary from grants and contracts?
In grants and contracts, an agency receives proposals to do tasks or research, chooses one or more entities to participate, and then pays the monetary award incrementally for the work to be done. In prize competitions, an agency generally selects a winner or winners based on the work that has already been done. In prize competitions, only the winner(s) receives an award.
Prize competitions define a smaller set of requirements, which allow participants to bring their creative solutions. This can be advantageous when a problem can be solved in many different ways, including ways that the agency is not even aware of. The open innovation approach can entice participation from those who may not have direct expertise in the problem subject matter area but can lend expertise from their diverse backgrounds.
How does NIH announce challenges and prize competitions?
You can find open challenges and prize competitions on
- CHALLENGE.GOV - the official hub for prize competitions across the U.S. federal government.
- Notices of information in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts.
- NIH institute, center, and office websites.
Each announcement will include submission details and contact information.
Under what authorities does NIH conduct challenges and prize competitions?
The America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 (COMPETES) provides prize authority to the head of each federal agency.