Martin Rees on the 2017 Hay Competition of Literature in Hay on Wye, UK
Alamy Inventory Photograph
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’s one other kind of award, one that appears to the longer term – the problem prize. Such prizes don’t recognise previous successes, relatively 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 aim. Examples embody the Longitude Prize on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), which has…
