Applications are open for Heywood Foundation Public Policy Prize 2021. Submissions are now open, and prizes of up to £25,000 are available for the best and most thought-provoking answers. It will be announcing the final closing date for the competition later (though it is likely to be around the end of March) together with the full panel of judges, which already include the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Michael Gove, and Lord O’Donnell, one of Jeremy’s predecessors.

1st Question

The first challenge prize is for spotting key opportunities or possibilities created by the COVID-19 crisis: What is a key challenge or opportunity presented by the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences?

Short answers are encouraged (no more than 300 words). Your answer might capture a seemingly simple detail of public or private sector practice that you think doesn’t make sense or could be made much better. Or it could describe a big change in how we could live – or are living – our lives, or how our economy or society works. You don’t have to have a solution: sometimes just identifying a problem or opportunity is an important insight in its own right. As such, we are setting prizes for the most innovative, surprising, or incisive identification of a challenge or opportunity created by the current crisis.

2nd Question

The second challenge prize seeks to find innovative answers to the challenges or opportunities presented: In the case of a problem, how might we fix it? In the case of an opportunity, how do we capitalise on it?

This could be a solution to a challenge you have identified, or it could be an idea in response to the challenges identified by others (click here to browse). Your idea might be a quick plan for a fix of a frustrating but ubiquitous piece of bureaucracy, or a process linked to handling the current response to coronavirus. It could be an idea for a better way of getting the economy back on its feet faster, or reducing the social or economic impact on a particular group or sector. Or perhaps it is an idea you have had for a while for improving our society, or environment, and that you think’s time has finally come. Credit will be given for the originality, practicality, and impact of ideas. Perhaps even more importantly, the winning submissions will put on the desks of leading policymakers, will attract wider debate, and perhaps will be enacted to make the world a better place. Submissions are limited to 1,000 words, with a short summary at the start.

Prizes 

Heywood Foundation Public Policy Prize has the following prizes

Question 1

• Top Prize: £5,000
• 10 Runner-ups: £500 each

Question 2

• Top Prize: £25,000
• Second Prize: £10,000
• Third Prize: £5,000
• 15 Runner-ups: £1,000 each

SUBMISSIONS