Longitude Prize

The Longitude Prize is an inducement prize contest offered by Nesta, a British lottery funded charity, in the spirit of the 18th-century Longitude rewards. It runs a £10 million prize fund, offering an £8 million payout to the team of researchers that develops an affordable, accurate, and fast point of care test for bacterial infection that is easy to use anywhere in the world. Such a test will allow the conservation of antibiotics for future generations and help solve the global problem of antimicrobial resistance.
The prize was announced by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron, in 2012, and a shortlist of six challenges to be put to a public vote was announced at the BBC's Broadcasting House in May 2014.
Longitude Committee.
A committee chaired by Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal, chose the six challenges that were be put to a public vote, and subsequently decided the format of the prize and the specific challenges that must be met to win. The committee members are:
Public vote.
The choice of challenges for the Prize was presented on an episode of the BBC science programme "Horizon", with a poll opened to the public afterwards. The options were:
The winner, antibiotics, was announced on "The One Show" on BBC 1 on 25 June. The committee issued a draft of the criteria with a two-week opportunity for open review, which finished 10 August 2014.
The vote was urged and welcomed by the Biochemical Society and Jamie Reed, the Shadow Minister for Health at the time and chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Antibiotics (APPG-A), who said "The scale of the challenge that antimicrobial resistance presents is beyond any doubt and new innovative thinking is essential."
Seed funding.
Since the announcement of the Longitude Prize, the foundation has selected thirteen organizations for seed funding between £10,000 and £25,000 to go toward their research. Called Discovery Awards, there have been three rounds of these grants.