Martin Rees on the 2017 Hay Pageant 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 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 purpose. Examples embrace the Longitude Prize on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), which has…