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OSTP Finds Prize Competitions Address Agency Needs, Reduce Costs
In the last five years, federal agencies have undertaken 116 price competitions and challenges that have helped the agencies “spur innovation, engage citizen solvers, address tough problems, and advance their core missions” as well as provide a cost savings for the agencies, according to a new report the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released on August 10. The report highlights several trends that have emerged over the last five years, including:
- More ambitious and sophisticated competitions;
- Inter-agency competitions as well as public-private partnerships;
- New models of public engagement to increase awareness of competitions;
- Multi-competition challenges focused around a specific issue; and,
- Commercialization of technologies developed by prize seekers.
OSTP also highlights the potential cost-savings that prize competitions and challenges offer to federal agencies when compared with traditional federal contracting and grant-making mechanisms. The report provides several examples, including a challenge that saved NASA almost $112,000 (in comparison to the potential in-house cost) to help improve the ability of the International Space Station (IIS) email system to send and receive larger attachments. OSTP indicates that an increasing number of federal agencies intend to use prize competition model in the future and will increasing use them to address more complex problems. Read the full report…