Challenges & Prize Competitions

Resources on Challenges & Prize Competitions

  • Guidance on the Use of Challenges and Prizes to Promote Open Government

    This guidance calls for the increased use of challenges and prizes to develop new tools and approaches to improve open government, and highlights for agencies policy and legal issues related to the use of prizes and challenges as tools for promoting open government, innovation, and other national priorities.

Tools and Services

  • Challenge.gov

    Provides resources and collaborative opportunities to facilitate the use of prize competitions in government.

Join a Community of Practice

  • Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science

    We work across government develop best practices for designing, implementing, and evaluating crowdsourcing and citizen science initiatives.

  • Challenge & Prize

    We encourage public participation in crowdsourcing competitions to find innovative government solutions.

News and Events on Challenges & Prize Competitions

151 posts

Challenge.Gov FY22 Year In Review

Challenge.gov is proud to be part of an ecosystem advancing open innovation in the federal government and engaging the public in open ways. Through the collective efforts of federal challenge managers and the ChallengeGov team, Challenge.gov hosted more prize competitions from a greater number of federal agencies than in previous years. Review fiscal year 2022’s accomplishments, and five goals for FY23. — via Challenge.gov

Challenge.gov logo

Feb 27, 2023

White House and GSA Celebrate Record Years in Prize Competitions, Citizen Science Efforts

White House & GSA Celebrate Record Years in Prize Competitions, Citizen Science Efforts—On July 20, GSA’s Open Innovation Program and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) co-hosted the Open Innovation Forum in partnership with Digital.gov. The event was themed around building equitable partnerships and it celebrated OSTP’s biennial report to Congress that covers the federal government’s prize competitions, crowdsourcing and citizen science initiatives in fiscal years 2019 and 2020. — via General Services Administration

General Services Administration logo

Aug 03, 2022

Open Innovation

White House and GSA Open Innovation Forum: Building Equitable Partnerships

Celebrating OSTP’s biennial report to Congress on Implementation of Federal Prizes and Citizen Science Authority, Fiscal Years 2019 - 2020, and the role of community partnerships in the federal open innovation landscape.
2022

Finding Post-award Balance With Quality Assurance

Finding Post-award Balance With Quality Assurance—If you’re one of the many federal employees carrying out your mission through contracting, you might have an important question: how do I know if my contractor is doing a good job? Even if you don’t have a strong technical background, there are steps you can take to build your confidence in the project’s maintainability and sustainability. — via 18F

18F logo

May 02, 2022

Finding post-award balance with quality assurance

If you’re one of the many federal employees carrying out your mission through contracting, you might have an important question: how do I know if my contractor is doing a good job? Even if you don’t have a strong technical background, there are steps you can take to build your confidence in the project’s maintainability and sustainability. — via 18F

18F logo

May 01, 2022

The Opportunity Project 2021 Summit: Open Innovation for All

Census Open Innovation Labs (COIL) at the U.S. Census Bureau is hosting a virtual, 3-day innovation conference, December 13 to 15. This year’s summit will feature keynotes, panels, workshops, and more—showcasing technology built with open data, and how to create space for conversations on government innovation, effective collaboration, the power of open data, and the inclusion of all voices. Seven federal agencies and two cities led TOP sprints focused on the World Post-COVID-19. They’ll introduce the resulting new products and announce more than $300,000 in awards to the winners of the Open Data for Good Grand Challenge. Review the full agenda and register to attend.
Dec 01, 2021
Spotlight Chat

Challenge and Prize Community Spotlight Chat with the Small Business Administration

A discussion of lessons learned from implementing the Lab-to-Market (L2M) Inclusive Innovation Ecosystem prize competition with members of the prize planning committee, including the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), and the Science and Technology Policy Institute (STPI)– one of three federally funded research and development centers of the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), a non-profit corporation that assists the federal government in addressing national security issues.
2021

U.S. Government Open Innovation Summit

Presentations that highligh the potential and impact of crowdsourcing through citizen science and prize competitions in the U.S. government
Watch Video
2019