Should the Private Sector get to Contribute $$ to Federal Science Prize Competitions? (H.R. 1162)

What is H.R. 1162?

(Updated August 6, 2020)

Under current law, heads of federal agencies can run prize competitions to incentivize scientific and technological innovation in the U.S. This bill would clarify that federal agencies can partner with both nonprofit and for-profit entities in the private sector to support their competitions. The bill would also require that all competitions be broadcast to the public on a government website.

Partnerships with non-profit or private sector for-profit organizations means that those organizations can offer money and resources to these federally-sponsored competitions. Agencies would be prohibited from giving special consideration to any of these non-governmental entities in exchange for their donations.

These changes to science prize-competitions sponsored would come through changes to the Stevenson-Wydler Technology Innovation Act. Information about these prize competitions would be made available on a publicly accessible government website. Agencies could waive this publication requirement, and log each usage of the waiver in an annual report with detailed explanations of why the waiver was granted.

Argument in favor

Prize competitions are a great incentive for attracting participation in areas where innovation is needed. Partnering with the private sector will help make the competitions more enticing to participants.

Argument opposed

The federal government should probably re-assess some of its appropriations requests if its going to start outsourcing R&D activities. Also, a public website with federal science competitions already exists: Challenge.Gov

Impact

Potential competitors in government-sponsored prize competitions, private sector for-profit and nonprofit organizations that might offer funding to a prize competition, federal agencies sponsoring prize competitions, technological and scientific advances in the U.S.

Cost of H.R. 1162

A CBO cost estimate found that enacting this bill could affect direct spending — but based on how competitions are conducted, the CBO anticipates that it affects to the federal deficit would be be rare and insignificant.

Additional Info

Of Note: Currently, competitions for federal agencies are listed in the Federal Register. A website public website has also already been sponsored that lists all active competitions through federal agencies — known as Challenge.gov.

A report on the usage of federal prize competitions in 2013 found that over 280 competitions had been sponsored by over 45 federal agencies.

Media:

• House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Press Release
  
• CBO Cost Estimate
• Nextgov
  
• XPrize (In Favor)
  
• Challenge.gov (Context)