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Can Lough Neagh be saved by challenge-oriented prize funding?

This time last year I wrote about the dire situation in Lough Neagh and some other watercourses in the North. Algal blooms caused by cyanobacteria, and ultimately by invasive zebra mussels, had contaminated the waterways and posed a serious health risk to users and bathers.
Several factors complicated any attempt to tackle the issue. First and most obvious is the lough’s vast size; at 400sq km it’s roughly half the size of Co Louth. Then is the fact that the lake bed is owned by the Earl of Shaftesbury, while various agencies and partnerships have responsibility for the surface and shores. In the absence of a functioning Northern Ireland Executive, it was not even clear that anyone had responsibility for untangling these various layers.
Happily, an Executive is now sitting at Stormont, and Minister for the Environment Andrew Muir has made Lough Neagh a priority for his department. Recognising the scale of the challenge and the need for collaboration to tackle it, he has established a multiagency and multifaceted approach with long-term ambitions and funding laid out. A key element of this is to leverage the spending power of government to unlock the innovative potential of small firms through a mechanism called SBRI (Small Business Research Initiative).
The initiative encourages innovation in small businesses by collaborating with the public sector. Government departments and agencies identify specific challenges that need an innovative solution. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) – businesses with fewer than 250 employees – can then submit an outline of their solution and, if selected, receive funding to develop it. The idea is not only to help grow small businesses but to encourage innovative practices in the public sector by allowing to buy in bespoke solutions and cutting-edge technology.
This procurement-driven, demand-led initiative has operated in the United Kingdom since 2009 and has recently been developed into a new umbrella programme called Contracts for Innovation. A recent evaluation by Steer ED found that healthcare innovations developed through SBRI would save at least £1.2 billion over their lifetime; on their own these would recoup almost the entire spend on SBRI across all projects.
[ Toxic algae are once again turning Lough Neagh green. The response is as stagnant as the waterOpens in new window ]
Challenge-oriented prize funding has a long history. After a naval disaster off the Isles of Scilly cost thousands of lives and was blamed on poor navigation, the British parliament passed the Longitude Act of 1714. This offered a maximum prize of £20,000 (equivalent to €2.1 million today) to anyone who could devise a method determining longitude at sea with margin of error less than half of one degree.
Eighteenth-century public procurement was not administered to our high standards. Due to a clash of personalities with those awarding the prize, the most successful applicant, John Harrison, had to repeatedly petition the king and parliament to obtain his reward. Nevertheless, the prize fund was a qualified success and by the 19th century British ships were routinely equipped with a marine chronometer based on Harrison’s design.
Similar prizes were used by the French government to find a means of preserving food and developing sodium carbonate. When supported by private finance, these prizes have tended to reward a specific feat, such as a flight across the United States or Atlantic Ocean. This approach has generated mixed results. The Hearst Prize for crossing America in 30 days or less expired unclaimed in 1911, but Charles Lindberg did win the $25,000 Orteig Prize in 1927 by flying the Spirit of St Louis nonstop from New York to Paris.
The current approach was pioneered in the United States through the SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) programme. Launched in 1982, SBIR leveraged the huge federal budget to support innovative SMEs through providing a clear and risk-free route to market by developing technology solutions to government challenges. The programme runs across some of the most significant spenders across government agencies, including the Department of Defense, the National Institutes of Health, and Nasa. Businesses retain full ownership of their intellectual property and, because the federal government takes no equity, the financial burden for small businesses is low.
Here in Ireland, an SBIR scheme has also run in recent years, with companies such as Safecility and Fernhay delivering innovative solutions to fire safety in historic buildings and carbon-free last-mile delivery services respectively. Now, the North’s Department of Environment has awarded £450,000 to five bidders to tackle algal blooms. Lack of government exacerbated the Lough Neagh crisis, but, by working with innovative companies, its co-ordinating ability and spending power could solve it.
Stuart Mathieson is research manager at InterTradeIreland

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