The Role of Prizes In Innovation

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "The Wall Street Journal's David Wessel assesses the impact on innovation of the increasing number of prizes, such as the X Prize, that reward solvers of intractable problems. From the column: 'Prizes prompt a lot of effort, far more than any sponsor could devote itself, but they generally pay only for success. That's "an important piece of shifting risk from inside the walls of the company and moving it out to the solver community," says Jill Panetta, InnoCentive's chief scientific officer. Competitors for the $10 million prize for the space vehicle spent 10 times that amount trying to win it. Contests also are a mechanism to tap scientific knowledge that's widely dispersed geographically, and not always in obvious places. Since posting its algorithm bounty in October, Netflix has drawn 15,000 entrants from 126 countries. The leading team is from Budapest University of Technology and Economics.'"

For the Glory

[Original Replica]

Especially, where universities are concerned, the bragging rights to a well advertised prize can be worth more than the prize itself. Competition also make a great muse.

Open Source Similarities?

[Quaz and Wally]

Seems like the mentality that goes into working on such prize projects probably goes into open source projects.

• The desire to expand your knowledge and skill.
• A personal interest in the completion of the project at hand.
• The need for recognition.
• Something to put on your resume.

Have corporations found a way to utilize this motivation in projects other than software? What role does the cash prize play in this if people are spending many times fold in attempting to win the spoils?

Re:Science is *NOT* a contest, and reality cares n

[khallow]

Science is full of contests (you already mention awards and prizes, for example). They get instant recognition at least in their field for being the first to discover an important idea or discovery. Contests are a way to demonstrate to the whole world that something is important rather than the few dozen people who have some interest directly in your work. $10 million for the first fully privately funded organization to put someone into space in a reusable vehicle. That's a big statement about the importance of doing that activity.

Instead, you complain that "pseudo-scientists" get the prize while the real scientists keep working hard, toiling in the shadows. I guess a world where the importance of science and of course, society's connection to reality just isn't that important. Where real science needs to be trimmed so the tots can have their astrology charts read or whatever. At some point, that's what's going to happen when the relevance of science to society and reality goes away. At least, a monetary prize attaches something real to that scientific progress and generates broader awareness about what's going on. Go ahead and push the myth of the selfless toiling scientist. Just don't be surprised when society fails to take that science seriously as a result.

Just a thought

[troll -1]

When I was in college I had a professor who doubted that prizes in science bring about any new inventions or discoveries that wouldn't have been made anyway. He argued that progress in science usually comes about through cooperation, not competition, and that the most significant advances in science were all made by people with little of no financial incentive (e.g. Newton, Einstein, Flemming, etc.)

The article doesn't say whether the Ph.D. crystallographer who solved the pathology problem won a prize, but I wonder if a prize would have made a difference.