Challenges and Prize Competitions
Challenges are explicitly a catalyst for innovative public-private partnership; evaluating their use assesses the extent to which agencies are prioritizing innovation over familiarity.
Key Insights
From 2016 to 2024, the number of challenges environmental agencies have issued per year has declined by two-thirds. During that same span, non-environmental agencies have over doubled their yearly issuance of challenges.
The divergence is even more drastic for technology challenges. Environmental agencies have fallen from 1.33 tech challenges per agency to 0 in 2024 while other agencies have nearly quadrupled their use of tech challenges from 2016 - 2024.
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Ideas for innovative technology can originate anywhere, but too often administrative barriers associated with contracting prevent matchmaking between innovators and government. Federal challenges are one way to balance the scales and overcome them. Challenges (or, prize competitions) have been shaping our world since the 1700s. More nimble than traditional government contracting, challenges are open to everyone and have low barriers to entry. They encourage healthy competition among diverse problem-solvers tailoring solutions for acute issues environmental agencies are addressing.
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“Where competition delivers innovation for the public good” is the motto of challenge.gov. Challenges are explicitly a catalyst for innovative public-private partnership. By observing how frequently - and at what scale - agencies deploy challenges relative to traditional contracts, we can assess the extent to which they are prioritizing innovation over familiarity. Beyond the literal measures in dollars and cents, extensive use of challenges signals an organization that is comfortable with agile, grassroots, and non-traditional pursuits of problem-solving, all excellent signs of an innovative culture.
Environmental Agencies Underutilize Innovation Challenges
| Average Total Challenges | Average Tech Challenges | Average Ratio of Tech to Non-Tech Challenges | |
|---|---|---|---|
| All Agencies | 29.6 | 13.1 | 0.38 |
| Environmental Agencies | 24.25 | 5.75 | 0.22 |
| Non-Environmental Agencies | 30.42 | 14.23 | 0.37 |
Takeaways and Next Steps
Environmental agencies are underutilizing challenges across the board and increasingly so as time goes on. There are understandable reasons for eschewing challenges, but using them frequently to pursue innovative problem solving is a sign that agencies have the infrastructure and conditions in place to work with a wide range of innovators. Underutilizing challenges may indicate that an agency is uncomfortable with the process, uneasy about collaborating with untested partners, or unable to frame their needs effectively. These, and similar root issues, hinder innovation in many ways beyond the use of challenges. Agencies seeking to increase their use of challenges should consider:
Exploring the resources available at Challenge.gov for implementing challenges.
Soliciting advice from or joining the Challenge and Prize community of practice.
Designating a Challenge Lead to help managers brainstorm, plan, and execute prize competitions.
| Environmental Agency | Total Challenges | Tech Challenges | Tech to Non-Tech Challenge Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Department of the Interior | 46 | 11 | 0.24 |
| Environmental Protection Agency | 39 | 10 | 0.26 |
| Department of Agriculture | 7 | 0 | 0 |
| Department of Commerce - NOAA | 5 | 2 | 0.40 |
*Statistics include Challenges posted from 2016 to 2024. Please see the methodology section below for challenge categorization.
Methodology →
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Last data pull: October 29th, 2024
Data vintage: 2010 - 2024
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Challenge.gov, open and archived challenges
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Tech challenges include the Software and apps; Analytics, visualization, and algorithms; and Technology demonstration and hardware categories from challenge.gov. We consider all other challenges to be non-tech challenges.