TxP Progress Prize

A new £5000 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?

The competition closed on 7th Jan 2024, thank you for all the brilliant submissions. Judging will take place over January/February and we will be in touch with entrants as soon as possible.

Why a blog prize?

Britain is stuck. A new movement around science, technology and economic progress offers a way forward. It champions abundance, not scarcity; state capacity, not decline; and supply-side action alongside demand-side subsidy. Above all, it is proudly solutionist. It recognises that golden ages don’t happen by accident: they are made by political choices.

We are in dire need of this thinking in the UK, with housing and energy costs soaring, living standards stagnating, and the state only just about managing. And it comes at a time when it has never been easier to write online and make the case for change.

In response, TxP is excited to launch the Progress Prize, to identify antidotes to Britain’s malaise and provide a platform for early/mid-career talent who can go on to make these solutions a reality.

How to enter

Submission criteria:

  • To enter: Send a link to your public blog/video, or attach a document if not public, to progress.prize@txp.fyi with the subject line ‘Progress Prize Submission’.

  • Deadline: 11.59pm, 7th January 2024

  • Limits: 1200 words or 10 minute video essay

  • Eligibility (please provide proof):

    • Entrants must be in the early-mid stages of their career. To accommodate those who have had time out of or away from work, we are not setting a strict upper age limit, but we expect entrants to have no more than 10 years of professional or postgrad experience.

    • Anyone who is from the UK or is living in the UK can enter.

  • Joint submissions are acceptable, providing all co-authors meet our other criteria

  • Publish online if you can: We encourage you to publish your essay online — either in your own name or anonymously.

  • You must include some short text about the Progress Prize and a link to this page, and please tag @txp_io when posting on Twitter. (However, given some entrants may not be able to write publicly, we will also accept private submissions attached to an email.)

  • Submissions must be original and unplagiarised. Blogs published later in the competition window may be influenced by earlier pieces, but judging will have a strong bias towards original and distinctive writing.

  • You can only submit one entry to the prize.

  • We will allow the use of LLMs as an aid in writing blog entries or producing video entries, but only if this is declared and you provide full details of the prompts used. But originality is encouraged.

What are we looking for?

We particularly welcome entries that:

  • advocate solutions, not introspection

  • amplify frontier technologies or under-represented ideas

  • offer a clear, tractable proposal that decision-makers could genuinely action today

  • help the next UK government advocate for science, tech and economic progress

  • accelerate prosperity and restore economic security for all

  • are original — responses can be influenced by others, but they will need to be distinctive to win

We are after eclectic responses — the more leftfield and innovative the better. You might promote synthetic biology or new industrial technologies, structural reforms or talent programmes, novel political mechanisms or economic incentives. Minor adjustments to tax and spend won't cut it.

Punchy takes encouraged: We are looking for written or video responses that are no more than 1200 words or 10 mins long, but the pithier the better. Submissions should be original and accessible, offering a clear argument and recommendation. Our judging panel reflects the kind of audience that you should be writing for: UK-focused, ambitious, technology and policy-literate, and maybe a little too online.

Publishing online: The prize is designed to encourage ongoing discussion. Given some entrants may not be able to write publicly, we will also accept private submissions attached to an email, but we do encourage you to share your writing more widely if possible. Who knows who will come across your idea and help make it happen?

Here is some inspiration:

And if you’re new to online writing, here’s some advice we’ve found useful:

Competition details

There will be 5 prizes:

  • £5000 for the winner, who will have their piece published online and in print in the New Statesman Spotlight

  • £1000 for the runner up

  • £750 for 3 other shortlisted pieces

All winners will also win an automatic interview for the Civic Future Fellowship, as well as receiving event passes to the New Statesman’s “Politics Live” conference next June. The winner will also win a 12-month digital subscription to the New Statesman, while all other runners-up will win a 6-month digital subscription.

TxP, Civic Future and New Statesman Spotlight will compile a shortlist to be judged by:

  • 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)