Glasgow is to become the European hub for XPRIZE, an initiative that aims to help solve some of the world's most pressing challenges such as climate change and food shortages through competitive rivalry.
The University of Glasgow's Mazumdar Shaw Advanced Research Centre (ARC) will become home to XPRIZE Europe. XPRIZE has been running global innovation competitions for more than 29 years, but this will be its first physical presence outside the United States.
Anousheh Ansari, chief executive of XPRIZE, said the new hub is part of a "future positive" movement and will play a key role in connecting academic, business and public sector leaders to foster stronger links between the US, Europe, Africa.
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"Although we've had teams participating from 140 countries, we felt that having a physical presence outside the US is important in really engaging the community of innovators and to suppor those innovators," she said.
"We've been looking at partnerships and since a lot of our teams come from universities, a university partnership was ideal. We are very, very lucky to be partnersing with the University of Glasgow and establishing our physical presence in the UK here in Scotland."
Programming and activities that currently take place in the UK will be replicated at the European centre, which is expected to employ three or four full-time XPRIZE staff locally.
There are currently four competitions running focusing respectively on: bringing an end to destructive wildfires; carbon removal; protein alternatives to chicken and fish; and rainforest protecrtion. Competitions usually run over several years with prizes ranging from a few up to tens of millions of dollars.
"We try to attract innovators from all over the world and we feel that having a European hub will allow teams to participate more from Europe in general but also it will become a hub for participation from other countries in Africa and Asia where coming to the US or engaging with our team in the US is sometimes challenging," said Ms Ansari, adding that three more competitions are due to be launched within the next six months.
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Principal and vice chancellor Anton Muscatelli said the partnership will allow the university to be a visible part of a growing global movement.
“XPRIZE has already had an incredible global impact in leveraging research to improve society and our lives, enabling and inspiring innovators and entrepreneurs to work together in novel ways," he said.
“XPRIZE Europe, based at the University of Glasgow, will build on those huge successes to further galvanise the innovation ecosystem, academic institutions and private sector to collaborate in research and innovation and to support entrepreneurial ambitions."
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