A British foundation is bringing back the historic Longitude Prize to award £10 million in a voting contest to choose the next scientific innovation.
After public votes from May 22 to June 25, the Longitude Prize 2014 fund will go to one of six important areas of scientific research, The Telegraph reported. The BBC will hold the voting contest on its website and by text.
The prize, which has been developed by the innovation foundation Nesta, will fund a project with a focus selected by the members of the public. Voters have a challenging field to pick from since every option represents an important field of scientific research to affect everyday people around the world.
They can choose between food innovations to ensure that the world's growing population stays nourished; technologies that help people with dementia stay independent; universal access to clean drinking water; airplanes with low emissions that won't damage the environment; solutions to give mobility to paralytics; or developments that will keep antimicrobial resistance at bay.
The research topics were selected by committee in a process that started last summer, according to the Longitude Prize website. More than 100 scientists and researchers from a range of backgrounds developed the specific challenges from broad themes. The selections were also influenced by the public through the input of focus groups.
After the challenge topic has been selected, people can submit specific ideas to accomplish that goal. Starting in September, the Longitude Prize will run for about five years, with the winning idea expected to be chosen by 2020.
Now in its 300th anniversary year, the Longitude Act goes back to a working-class clockmaker named John Harrison, who worked in 1714 to solve the navigational problem of measuring lines of longitude from pole to pole.
As nations including Spain, the Netherlands and France offered rewards for the solution, the Lincolnshire clockmaker discovered the answer, which lay in using a highly accurate marine chronometer.
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