PRIZES AS AN ECOSYSTEM CATALYST
LONDON REAP TEAM
SAMANTHA VANDERSLOTT
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
[email protected]
OVERVIEW
1. Introduction
2. Prize popularity
3. What type of prize?
4. Comparing prizes
5. London-UK prize ecosystem
5.1 Prizes by stakeholder group
5.2 Prize sponsors by stakeholder group
5.3 Prizes by stage of business targeted
5.4 Number of prizes by stage of business targeted
6. Ecosystem stakeholders and stage of business
6.1 Stakeholders
6.2 Types of business
6.3 Other kinds of prize…
6.4 Sector focus: ePrize
6.5 Sector focus: iPrize
7. Survey of the challenge prize landscape
8. Strengths & weaknesses of the UK prize ecosystem
8.1 A prize for growth?
9. Prizes within London REAP
10. Rethinking our prizes
10.1 ePrizes and iPrizes
10.2 Encouraging growth and scale-up
11. Next steps
11.1 Challenges to overcome and key steps to moves ahead
1. INTRODUCTION
The London ecosystem is especially stocked with innovation and entrepreneurship prizes
that span across stakeholders: Government, Universities, Corporates and Finance.
This report by the London REAP team assesses the current London and UK prize ecosystem,
considering:
•  the stakeholders involved;
•  the composition of these types of prizes;
•  and whether prizes increase innovation and entrepreneurship capacity.
The prizes surveyed are London-based but include UK-wide prizes representative of the prize
ecosystem. We aim to be comprehensive in our coverage but there may be smaller prizes that are
not included. We then go on to make recommendations of actions we intend to take in order to
strengthen our prize ecosystem as a collective of individual stakeholders.
HSBC Youth Enterprise Awards
Cisco British Innovation Gateway (BIG) Awards
UK EY Entrepreneur Of The Year program
The Unilever Sustainable Living Young Entrepreneurs Awards
Sirius Programme (UKTI)
Santander Universities Entrepreneurship Awards
London Entrepreneurs' Challenge (UCL)
IBM Universities Business Challenge
London Arts Creative Enterprise Award
The LSE Digital Innovation Challenge
ERA Foundation Entrepreneurs Award
CitySpark Big Ideas Competition
SOAS Use Your Passion: Kick-start your Idea
Imperial New Business Challenge
London Met Business Plan Competition
Shell LiveWIRE Grand Ideas Awards
UKTI Export for Growth
The Great British Entrepreneur Awards (Natwest)
Young Sustainability Entrepreneur Prize
Mayor of London's Low Carbon
Microsoft Imagine Cup UK
Entrepreneur
UKTI Entrepreneurs Festival
UKBAA Angel Investment Awards
Stelios Award for Disabled Entrepreneurs in the UK
2. PRIZE POPULARITY
There is a wealth of literature supporting the potential of prizes, especially for innovation.
In a 2007 report, the US National Research Council* found that the potential for a program of
innovation-inducement prize contests to be “a sound investment in strengthening the infrastructure
for U.S. innovation.”
Management consultants McKinsey & Company** have also tracked 219 current large prizes (over
$100k) to find that the total value of prize money has significantly increased over the last 35 years.
The number of ‘challenge’ or ‘inducement’ prizes, that offer a reward to meeting a defined challenge
either first or most effectively, has grown rapidly. While there is no dedicated survey or annual
reporting of entrepreneurship and innovation prize ecosystems either nationally or internationally,
there is much current enthusiasm for prizes within policy, philanthropic and private sector circles.
*National Research Council, Innovation Inducement Prices at the National Science Foundation, Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2007.
**McKinsey, And the winner is...Capturing the promise of philanthropic prizes, March 2009.
3. WHAT TYPE OF PRIZE?
We will explore prizes that foster eCap – ‘ePrizes’ and iCap – ‘iPrizes’.*
ePrizes
These are ‘recognition prizes’ that promote and celebrate
entrepreneurship, raising the profile of entrepreneurs and their
achievements. They reward entrepreneurial ideas and people
through awards but also look to foster the next generation.
This can be done by focusing on young people, including
students or recent graduates employing support measures
such as business plan competitions, pitching competitions and
mentoring in addition to cash prizes.
Although ePrizes do not just apply to young people. There are
many prizes for example rewarding high growth businesses of
whom many having received multimillion turnover, including via
the UKBAA Angel Investment Awards, The NatWest Great
British Entrepreneur Awards, Growing Business Awards, EY
Entrepreneur of the Year and Fast track 100. There is major
commercial potential for these entrepreneurs, in terms of PR,
status, recognition within the sector and market. This often
leads to increased sales and customers and is the reason why
awards are so popular with businesses.
iPrizes
These are predominately ‘inducement’ or ‘challenge’ prizes.
Although there exists a strong historical precedence of these
types of prizes accelerating change in the world, they are also
making a comeback in London and UK-wide as a problemsolving device and as a way to exploit technological
opportunities. Such prizes are all designed to support and
promote innovation as the emphasis is on developing new
technological innovations or collaborations. Other iPrizes can
be recognition prizes for an established innovation or a new,
promising innovation idea.
*MIT Sloan Business School professors Fiona Murray, Bill Aulet and Scott Stern, refer to eCap as entrepreneurship capacity and iCap as Innovation capacity
4. COMPARING PRIZES
Commonalities and differences between ePrizes and iPrizes.
EPRIZE
IPRIZE
Sector focus
Non-sector specific but more
awards for certain sectors
(e.g. sustainability, creative,
engineering)
Concentration on technological
innovation and certain sectors
feature (health and
sustainability)
Wider/societal
benefit
Economic benefit through job
creation, national pride and
international competitiveness
eluded to
Public involvement
Awards ceremonies, some
high profile
End goals include problem
solving for grand challenges human wellbeing,
environmental sustainability
etc.
Calls for public voting, high
profile and large scale media
attention
Recipient profile
The focus is on the individual
entrepreneur or small
entrepreneurial team
For the big challenge/
inducement prizes there
extends a focus on larger and
more established teams either
in universities or industry
Smaller amounts but more
prizes. Strong market
recognition/prestige also leads
to new customers and market
opportunities
Higher amount as an
incentive for new activity with
new commercial potential
rather than recognition of
existing activity
Monetary and
commercial value
5. LONDON-UK PRIZE ECOSYSTEM
5.1 Prizes by stakeholder group
ePrize
University
Corporate
Government
Finance
New Business Challenge
(Imperial)
ERA Foundation
Entrepreneurs Award
UKTI Export for Growth
Prize
HSBC Youth Enterprise
Awards
Awards for Enterprise, ChinaUK Challenge London
Entrepreneurs' Challenge
(UCL)
IBM Universities Business
Challenge
UKTI Entrepreneurs
Festival
The Great British
Entrepreneur Awards (RBS/
NatWest Headline Sponsor)
University of Arts London
Creative Enterprise Award
(RBS Headline Sponsor)
The Unilever Sustainable
Living Young Entrepreneurs
Awards
Richmond’s Den
Enterprise Programme
(Richmond Council)
Santander Universities
Entrepreneurship Awards
Use Your Passion: Kick-start
your Idea (SOAS)
Stelios Award for Disabled
Entrepreneurs in the UK
Million Pound Startup
(Mayor of London)
RBS Enterprising Student
Society Accreditation
Awards
London Met Business Plan
Competition
Growing Business Awards
(Real Business and the CBI)
Mayor of London's Low
Carbon Entrepreneur
Santander Enterprise &
Social Development Awards
Loughborough Student &
Graduate Business Plan
Competition
BT Entrepreneur Award
NatWest Women in
Business Awards (RBS
Headline Sponsor)
Virgin's Pitch to Rich
UKBAA Angel Investment
Awards
UK Startup Awards
RBS EnterprisingU Awards
UK EY Entrepreneur Of The
Year
Lloyds Bank Enterprise
Awards
O2 Smarta 100 Awards
The Sunday Times Virgin Fast
Track 100
The Pitch UK
iPrize
CleanTech Challenge, Health
Social Innovators'
Programme, Bright ideas
(UCL)
Shell LiveWIRE Grand Ideas
Awards and Entrepreneur of
the Year
NHS Innovation
Challenge Prizes
CitySpark Big Ideas (City
University)
The Virgin Earth Challenge
The Longitude Prize (BIS
NESTA)
The LSE Digital Innovation
Challenge
Microsoft Imagine Cup UK
Saltire Prize (Scottish
Govt)
Take one small step
competition (Barclays)
Innotech Bafta
Orange Different Business
Awards UK
Cisco British Innovation
Gateway Awards
Hybrid
Shortlist & Wayra New Digital
Entrepreneur
Sirius Programme (UKTI)
RBS Prize for
Entrepreneurship &
Innovation
5.2 Prize sponsors by stakeholder group
UKTI"
IBM"
Shortlist
& Wayra"
Stelios
(Easyjet)!
Cisco"
Scottish"
govt,. "
Richmond
Council"
Government!
BT"
Mayor of
London"
Corporate!
Orange"
NHS"
Virgin"
BIS &
NESTA"
Ernst &
Young
(EY)"
Microsoft"
Shell"
RBS/
NatWest"
Sunday
Times "
ERA"
Lloyds"
UK
Startup"
Corporate:
(Trade/
industry
body)!
Santander"
Finance!
UKBAA"
HSBC"
Real
Business
and the
CBI"
Barclays"
UCL"
University
of the
Arts"
Imperial"
London
Met"
Universities!
SOAS"
(acronyms explained in Appendix)
Loughborough"
LSE"
City"
5.3 Prizes by stage of business targeted
ePrize
Idea
Start-up
Growth
Established
All
New Business
Challenge
(Imperial)
RBS Enterprising Student
Society Accreditation
Awards
UKTI Export for
Growth Prize
Santander Enterprise &
Social Development
Awards
University of Arts
London Creative
Enterprise Award
(RBS Headline
Sponsor)
Awards for Enterprise, ChinaUK Challenge London
Entrepreneurs' Challenge
(UCL)
Growing Business
Awards (Real
Business and the
CBI)
The Great British
Entrepreneur Awards
(RBS/NatWest Headline
Sponsor)
Loughborough
Student &
Graduate Business
Plan Competition
Richmond’s Den Enterprise
Programme (Richmond
Council)
Million Pound
Startup (Mayor
of London)
Mayor of London's Low
Carbon Entrepreneur
London Met
Business Plan
Competition
RBS EnterprisingU Awards
The Sunday
Times Virgin
Fast Track 100
Stelios Award for Disabled
Entrepreneurs in the UK
IBM Universities
Business
Challenge
Unilever Young
Sustainability Entrepreneur
Prize
UKBAA Angel Investment
Awards
Use Your Passion: Santander Universities
Kick-start your Idea Entrepreneurship Awards
(SOAS)
ERA Foundation
Entrepreneurs Award
The Pitch UK
HSBC Youth Enterprise
Awards
UKTI Entrepreneurs
Festival
Virgin's Pitch to
Rich
UK Startup Awards
BT Entrepreneur Award
Lloyds Bank Enterprise
Awards
UK EY Entrepreneur Of The
Year
NatWest Women in
Business Awards (RBS
Headline Sponsor)
iPrize
CitySpark Big
Ideas (City
University)
Shell Entrepreneur of the
Year
The Virgin
Earth
Challenge
The LSE Digital
Innovation
Challenge
CleanTech Challenge, Health
Social Innovators'
Programme (UCL)
NHS Innovation Cisco British Innovation
Challenge
Gateway Awards
Prizes
Take one small
step competition
(Barclays)
O2 Smarta 100 Awards
Saltire Prize
Orange Different Business
Awards UK
The Longitude
Prize
Microsoft Imagine Cup UK
Bright ideas (UCL)
Innotech Bafta
Shell LiveWIRE
Grand Ideas
Awards
Hybrid
Shortlist & Wayra New Digital
Entrepreneur
Sirius Programme (UKTI)
RBS Prize for
Entrepreneurship &
Innovation
5.4 Number of prizes by stage of business targeted
ePrizes
ALL STAGES
10 prizes
IDEA
8 prizes
Hybrids
GROWTH
4 prizes
START-UP
9 prizes
START-UP
2 prizes
ALL
1 prize
iPrizes
ALL STAGES
4 prizes
IDEA
4 prizes
START-UP
3 prizes
ESTABLISHED
4 prizes
6. ECOSYSTEM STAKEHOLDERS AND TYPES
OF BUSINESS
6.1 Stakeholders
Most of the major London universities have a mixture of ePrizes and iPrizes:
•  As they are keen to foster the next generation of talent, many have a business plan
component and invitation for students to pitch, with winners receiving mentoring alongside
cash prizes.
•  They are typically more upstream looking, focusing on developing ideas with some having a
sector focus such as the ‘LSE Digital Innovation Challenge’ and ‘London Arts Creative
Enterprise Award’.
Corporates offer mainly ePrizes:
•  Of the two iPrizes that are identified, one is non sector specific in helping young people start
businesses (Shell LiveWire) and the other is the ‘Virgin Earth Challenge’ with sustainability
goals.
•  However, there is now a shift in Corporates beginning to recognise and promote iPrizes
embrace innovative start-ups instead of being threatened by them, with a move towards
‘open innovation’ (e.g. Cisco’s British Innovation Gateway awards).
•  There are also trade associations who run prizes in their respective sectorial areas, such as
the UK British Angels Association (UKBAA) and ERA a foundation for electro-technology.
•  Most common for corporate and trade body awards is rewarding growing businesses and
those at the growth stage, such as the ‘Growing Business Awards’. The awards were
created by Confederation of British Industry (CBI) and Real Business, a website and
magazine for high-growth businesses and entrepreneurial SMEs.
In finance the big banks in the UK, ‘the big four’, all have ePrizes:
•  These are in the shape of recognition prizes for both established and new entrepreneurs,
including young people and students. These are Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, RBS/NatWest.
•  Other banks such as Santander also have high profile awards.
Government prizes include three high profile ‘inducement’ or ‘challenge’ iPrizes:
•  These are sustainability or health related. An exception is the Sirius Programme, as it is run
by the UK Trade and Industry (UKTI) which has an outward approach to bring in talent from
outside the UK.
•  This is non sector specific and they have a business stream and ideas stream for
applicants, meaning they are positioned between an iPrize and ePrize. The UKTI also has
a growth targeted prized called ‘Export for Growth’.
Some prizes are initiatives run between stakeholders with one ecosystem stakeholder taking
the lead or where a stakeholder is a partner/main sponsor. Arguably also entrepreneurs are
also sponsors of prizes themselves, as with the ‘Stelios Award for Disabled Entrepreneurs in
the UK’ by entrepreneur Stelios Haji-Ioannou, best known for founding easyJet, although
Richard Branson also features prominently for the Virgin sponsored prizes. As these are
limited examples and entrepreneurs who have grown large companies, we have included
them as corporate stakeholders.
6.2 Types of business
The stage of businesses targeted follows a different pattern for ePrizes and iPrizes:
•  With ePrizes, predominately start-up and companies of all stages are targeted. However,
there is also a noticeable group of prizes that are growth focused.
•  It is not surprising that there is a lack of similar iPrizes targeting growth businesses. If
innovation is the focal point it is unlikely that a prize will be able to differentiate between the
stage of company that is innovating, apart from at the very early stage or established.
•  We can see there are several iPrizes that are best suited for businesses either at the early
idea stage or established businesses/teams, as with inducement/challenge prizes.
Both ePrizes and iPrizes target a range of sectors from sustainability, design, engineering to
a generic focus across sectors.
The inducement/challenge iPrizes are all health or
sustainability related as they pose large societal challenges. Additionally a large number of
the corporate iPrizes are technology related as it is technology-centred companies such as
Microsoft, Orange, Cisco and Telefonica who have an incentive to foster new innovative
ideas.
There are also some prizes that target particular categories of entrepreneurs such as women,
disabled, young/student/graduate or social entrepreneurs.
6.3 And other kinds of prize…
There are other kinds of prize that exist within the entrepreneurship ecosystem that may
grow in importance, particularly as the prize method of achieving goals and solving
problems has become fashionable:
•  Prizes as part of an acceleration, incubation,
mentoring or investment program (e.g.
Seedcamp, Wayra, Young Foundation
Accelerator, BT Infinity Lab Competition)
•  Grants and contracts are awarded through
competitions often by government and
philanthropic organisations (e.g. Future Fifty,
TSB Smart Grant)
•  Crowdsourcing innovation through companies
such as Kickstarter, Indiegogo etc. It is the
entrepreneurs here who gives a prize in return
for receiving money (for example privileged
access to a new technology)
6.4 Sector focus: ePrizes
Inspiratory, either by celebrating existing success (individual entrepreneurs and their teams) or
encouraging newcomers with seed funding to kick-start their ideas.
Corporate
Corporate
ERA Foundation Entrepreneurs
Award entrepreneurial
engineering researchers
working in UK universities, in a
field involving electrotechnology, receiving £10k and
£30k to invest in the winning
idea
The Unilever Sustainable Living Young
Entrepreneurs Awards
in partnership with the Cambridge
Institute for Sustainability Leadership
and Ashoka, 7 young people approx.
£160k (€200k) and mentoring
Government
Mayor of
London’s Low Carbon
Entrepreneur
£20k for innovative ideas
from London's students to
reduce London's carbon
emissions and energy usage
Sector
University
University
Of Arts London Creative
Enterprise Awards
£1k to celebrate
enterprising students/recent
graduates
Generic
Engineering
Sustainability
Creative
Finance
Lloyds Bank Enterprise Awards
£50k cash investment and
mentoring for student/graduate
entrepreneurs as well as
mentoring support, PR coverage
and
free legal advice
6.5 Sector focus: iPrizes
Large, current international challenge/inducement prizes initiated in UK.
Corporate
Government
Saltire Prize
Scotland’s £10m clean energy
challenge to accelerate the
commercial development of
wave and tidal energy
technology
Virgin
Earth Challenge
$25m (est. £15m) prize for a commercially
viable design resulting in the permanent
removal of greenhouse gases out of the
Earth's atmosphere to contribute materially
in global warming avoidance.
Government
Government
NHS
Innovation Challenge
Prizes
Ongoing prize of £650,000
and £100,000 in
mentoring*
Sector
Sustainability
The
Longitude Prize
£10 million prize fund to solve
one of the greatest issues of our
time voted by the public: How can
we prevent the rise of resistance
to antibiotics?
Health
*calling for innovations in diabetes, infection
control, use of technology, rehabilitation and
digital patient and clinician engagement.
7. SURVEY OF THE CHALLENGE PRIZE
LANDSCAPE
Recent practice
There has been a significant growth in the number of challenge prizes
and competitions launched over recent years. This timeline illustrates
some recent examples.
Diagram includes prizes that have originated outside of the UK and historic prizes
now discontinued.
Source: Challenge Prizes Landscape Review (2012) NESTA – The UK National Endowment for Science, Technology
and the Arts
8. STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESS OF UK
PRIZE LANDSCAPE
Our concern for the UK prize landscape is whether our strength in the large number and
variety of prizes from different organisations is having a concrete impact and in the right
places:
•  Is it a waste of time and resources spent by entrepreneurs applying for the many prizes
that are available - rather than growing the business? If there is an opportunity cost for
entrepreneurs applying for prizes there needs to be clear information about what is out
there, the eligibility and fit. This includes iPrizes where it there is a big innovation
challenge and competitors can use up a lot of resource chasing the prize. For ePrizes this
is time lost form-filling not wanting to miss a possible award. Not giving feedback/guidance
given to those who didn't win can leave them deflated and discouraged, while not giving
ongoing motivation/support to winners can limit their chances of remaining successful.
•  Is the prize market in the UK getting too crowded with prizes where the value to the
entrepreneur is unclear? For both ePrizes and iPrizes this could be awards going to
established rather than up-and-coming players, with a bandwagon effect of prizes going to
those who already have prizes.
•  Is it lots of hype and PR in making a prize stand out but difficult to realise the commercial
value? For ePrizes this can be not attracting the right quality of entries / Initial buzz of the
competition fading off in time. For iPrizes this can be an over-emphasis on innovation and
not on implementation: “…we need a real market for impact. There may be a role for
contests in it, but contests didn’t drive Silicon Valley—it was investors and
entrepreneurs playing in a functioning market.”* This highlights how goals are not the
only consideration and the design and impact is also crucial (discussed on next page).
Prizes can promise a lot but do not always provide lasting impact. They cannot create markets
and more efficient allocation of funding.
Even worse prizes can sometimes act as a
smokescreen. However, there is also a broader impact in generating interest in the goals of
promotion of enterprise and innovation within our society and economy. For example, the
recognition created through ePrizes does create value.
As is seen with industry specific awards, they offer recognition of the industry and greater
exposure leading to real commercial success. Also the emphasis is on making an investment or
grant in both ePrizes and iPrizes provides a function in the market and this is not just through
direct financial gain but through access to free advice or support such as free mentoring, legal or
PR advice, business plan assessment and pitching opportunities.
*Kevin Starr, ‘Dump the prizes’ (2013), Stanford Social Innovation Review
8.1 A prize for growth?
We have identified potential weaknesses of having a large pool of prizes.
consider the argument for a standalone prize targeting growth businesses.
Next we
The REAP team are focusing on growth and scale-up businesses. There already exists two
specific ePrizes for growth. These are the Growing Business Awards by Real Business (a
publisher for businesses) and the Confederation of British Industry and the Sunday Times
Virgin Fast Track 100:
•  This is a more recent set of awards ranking Britain's 100 private companies with the fastestgrowing sales over their latest three years.
•  The prize winners and runner ups are published in The Sunday Times each December, with
an awards event each may (at Virgin entrepreneur Richard Branson's Oxfordshire family
home).
•  Fast Track 100 is supported by a mixture of stakeholders: the corporate as the title sponsor
(Virgin) and finance (Barclays), Government (Business Growth Fund) and another corporate
(Baker Tilley) all as main sponsors.
•  In addition Fast Track 100 also generates useful information about the make-up of fast
growth companies, which demonstrates the importance of such awards for intelligence
gathering and a better understanding and awareness of entrepreneurship.
Source: Fast Track 100, produced by Barclays Wealth Management, http://www.fasttrack.co.uk/fasttrack/leagues/ft100infographic.html
We are cautious about having a specific iPrize for growth companies. A prize can have the right
objectives but a lack of viability. There was a cautionary tale this year with the cancellation of
“The million pound start-up competition” due to lack of quality entries. The competition was
supported by the Mayor of London Boris Johnson and the Tech City Investment Organisation
(TCIO) among others:
•  The idea behind the competition was to bring a high-growth technology company to London.
However, none of the entrants were deemed to be of high enough quality to win the prize,
which also included consultancy, PR and legal services.
•  According to Richard Botley at the PR company Ketchum: “In the end it proved difficult to
find companies that had both the right level of ambition and could stand a valuation
for £2-£10m”*. This competition was specifically targeting growth companies from an
international pool, which goes to show the difficulty in identifying companies of this caliber.
This is not an uncommon occurrence in the prize world and questions the need for welldesigned prizes that take advantage of clearly identified needs and opportunities, as well as an
understanding of market conditions. A high profile example of this was one of the most famous
and largest innovation inducement prizes in the world – the ‘XPRIZE’:
•  The ‘Archon Genomics XPRIZE’ was cancelled because of innovation outpacing the
challenge that had put in place for quicker, higher quality genome sequencing technology**.
•  The prize had been $10 million for: “the first to rapidly and accurately sequence 100
whole human genomes to a standard never before achieved and at a cost of less than
$1,000 per genome”.
Source: www.genomics.xprize.org/
*Tom Brewster, The Guardian ‘ Boris Johnson’s £1mstartup competition flops’ 25 March 2014
**Peter Diamandis, ‘Cancellation of the Archon Genomics XPRIZE’, genomics.xprize.org/
9. PRIZES WITHIN LONDON REAP
Distribution of ePrizes and iPrizes within the REAP team.
Universities
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
UCL Awards for Enterprise
UCL China-UK Challenge
UCL Bright Ideas Award
UCL CleanTech Challenge
UCL Health Social Innovators' Programme
London Entrepreneurs’ Challenge (E-Challenge)
Loughborough Student and Graduate Business Plan Competition
ePrize
ePrize
ePrize
ePrize
Government
• 
• 
• 
• 
UKTI Sirius Programme
UKTI Export for Growth Prize
UKTI Entrepreneurs Festival
Longitude Prize (BIS and NESTA)
Finance
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
RBS Enterprising Student Society Accreditation (ESSA) Awards
RBS EnterprisingU Awards
RBS Prize for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Great British Entrepreneur Awards (RBS Headline Sponsor)
UAL's Creative Entrepreneur Awards (RBS Headline Sponsor)
NatWest Women in Business Awards (RBS Headline Sponsor)
UKBAA Angel Investment Awards
ePrize
ePrize
ePrize
ePrize
ePrize
ePrize
ePrize
ePrize
ePrize
ePrize
Corporate
•  BT Entrepreneur Award
•  UK EY Entrepreneur Of The Year program
iPrize
iPrize
iPrize
ePrize
ePrize
iPrize
iPrize
iPrize
10. RETHINKING OUR PRIZES
10.1 ePrizes and iPrizes
We have a relatively even spread of ePrizes and iPrizes within the REAP team, although there are
more ePrizes overall. Also we should note that even if a stakeholder is not the lead of a prize they
can be partners or sponsors such as RBS/NatWest who are a sponsor of the ‘University of Arts
London Creative Enterprise Awards’.
•  The Universities in the team, as is to be expected, have more iPrizes and target younger
entrepreneurs and start-ups.
•  The corporate and finance stakeholders in the team have predominately ePrizes. If there were
more technology-orientated stakeholders we may have had more iPrizes.
•  Government have a mixture of ePrizes and iPrizes and those iPrizes are challenge/inducement
prizes, which address societal challenges.
10. 2 Encouraging growth and scale-up
•  The corporate and finance stakeholders support more of a mixture of growth businesses and
established entrepreneurs. The two corporate stakeholders BT and Ernst and Young have
‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ awards. While the UKBAA includes growth companies through one of
their awards for ‘High Growth Team of the Year’.
•  RBS have a range of awards, which includes the Enterprising Student Society Accreditation
(ESSA) Awards specifically targeting students but also their Prize for Entrepreneurship and
Innovation for companies further down the growth scale. The Prize for Entrepreneurship and
Innovation has a focus on digital innovation, measuring market impact, degree of innovation and
technical or financial feasibility. This prize explicitly follows the model of MIT $100K and BP
Contest of Harvard Business School.
•  Both UCL and UKTI are international in their outlook. UCL has a university motto ‘ London’s
Global University and has the ‘China UK Challenge’ as well. Government can also have a more
varied remit than other organisations and the UKTI is concerned with the UK’s competitiveness
in the global economy. Both UKTI’s ‘Export for Growth’ and ‘Sirius Programme’ have an
international scope.
11. NEXT STEPS
Taking into account the potential pitfalls of prizes and an already packed landscape in
London, we suggest areas for improvement in existing competitions in the current
system and infrastructure in two areas:
1. Connectivity between prizes and stakeholders to prevent overcrowding/overlapping
• 
Kaufmann research* shows that connections amongst entrepreneurs by creating a
cohort of entrepreneurs (e.g. The Arch Grants competition). Thus joint prizes amongst
prize-giving organisations is recommended.
2. Awareness and information of prizes available
• 
McKinsey research** notes that while there has been a growth in prizes “Not all of the
growth has been positive, however, as the many overlapping prizes and growing
clutter of the sector attests”
11.1 Challenges to overcome and key steps to move
ahead
• 
There is a lot on offer but this needs to be streamlined and rationalised. For example
there are groups that offer individually similar prizes such as the universities, as well as
the banks offering their own ePrizes and corporates also offering ePrizes in the form of
‘entrepreneur of the year’.
• 
We need to leverage the London ecosystem to attract quality entries, building upon the
potential of our REAP team, in order to provide on-going support and feedback as part
of our re-evaluation of the 'relevance' and 'purpose' of the prizes and competitions.
• 
As part of the REAP program we want to consider what activity is encouraging high
growth IDEs (Innovation-Driven Enterprises). This should involve enabling the REAP
team to review their current prizes in detail, ensure that these respond to eCap and
iCap and identify any gaps. London REAP have narrowed our focus to scaling up and
growth, so we must consider if there enough to support entrepreneurs in the growth
phase, asking the question from what we have learnt about prizes: Can we be sure we
are adding real value in the market and are we clear on the benefits and opportunities
that we are offering?
*Motoyama & Watkins, Examining the Connections within the Startup Ecosystem: A Case Study of St. Louis, 2014
**McKinsey report And the winner is...Capturing the promise of philanthropic prizes, published in March 2009.
APPENDIX
Acronyms
BIS – Department for Business Innovation and Skills
EY – Ernst and Young
ERA - Foundation for electro-technology
eCap – Enterprise Capacity
iCap – Innovation Capacity
LSE – London School of Economics
London Met – London Metropolitan University
MIT – Massachusetts Institute of Technology
NHS – National Health Service
REAP – Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Programme
RBS – Royal Bank of Scotland
SOAS – School of Oriental and African Studies
UCL – University College London
UKBAA – UK Business Angels Association