TxP Progress Prize

Thank you to everyone who submitted to the TxP Progress Prize, a new blog prize in partnership with Civic Future and New Statesman Spotlight, encouraging responses to the question:

Britain is stuck. How can we get it moving again?

We are delighted to announce the winners, runner up, shortlistees, and honourable mentions from a field of nearly 100 submissions. Reflecting the breadth of the TxP network, these entrants came from a wide range of different career backgrounds at the forefront of science and tech progress, including biotech, data science, VC, public policy, journalism, consulting, and even university.

Winner (£5000)

Rian Whitton: Firm Power can reduce Britain’s electricity prices

Runner up (£1000)

Alec Thompson: Open Source the Law

Shortlisted (£750)

Ashna Ahmad: Chilean Telexes and the Allocation Problem

Ben Hopkinson: Britain’s Second Cities are Stuck: Let’s Get Them Moving Again

Daniel Timms: The Case for a New City

Highly Commended

Benedict Springbett: All abroad!

Lydia Farnham: Innovation Ecosystem

Lily Geidelberg: The case for British Biotech

Tom Hallaron: The Bee Network must take to the skies

Joe Hill: Venture Statecraft

Duncan McClements and Jason Hausenloy: Insuring Progress

Lucy McCormick: It’s time we let the robots take our jobs

Alistair Schofield: Is a housing revolution key to getting Britain unstuck?

Alex Telford: Should the UK embrace its role as an exporter of talent and ideas?

Special thanks also to:

Our judges:

  • Kanishka Narayan (Labour PPC for Vale of Glamorgan, former tech investor & government adviser)

  • Sarah Hunter (Non-Executive Director of ARIA, former Global Director of Public Policy for Google X and former New Labour DCMS SpAd)

  • Richard Jones (Materials Physics Professor and VP for Regional Innovation, University of Manchester)

  • Sam Freedman (Senior Fellow, Institute for Government, Substack writer, and Education adviser to Ark and formerly the Department for Education)

  • Alona Ferber (Senior Editor, New Statesman Spotlight)

  • Munira Mirza (CEO, Civic Future, former Director of the No 10 Policy Unit)

Our partners for the prize:

  • New Statesman Spotlight

  • Civic Future

  • Emergent Ventures, which provided the grant funding

And everyone else who entered! Please do keep writing and sharing your ideas, and we hope you enjoy reading the above responses as much as we did.

The original prize details can be found here.