Martin Rees: Why problem prizes can clear up our most urgent points

The Oscars. The Booker prize. The Nobels. The award ceremonies that punctuate our yr are all inherently backward-looking, celebrating previous achievements. However there may be one other sort of award, one that appears to the long run – the problem prize. Such prizes don’t recognise previous successes, slightly incentivise future ones.

The concept is easy: a problem is chosen – with a clear-cut goal – and a jackpot is obtainable to whoever first reaches that objective. Examples embody the Longitude Prize on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), which has…