Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

Challenge prizes are a tried and tested method for supporting innovation. They offer a reward to whoever can first or most effectively meet a defined challenge. 

They act as an incentive for meeting a specific challenge, rather than being a reward for past achievements. 

Prizes are also a means of throwing open a challenge beyond the ‘usual suspects’, thus facilitating the engagement and participation of anyone who can solve the challenge. Through a public competition, challenge prizes aim to tap into and engage the broadest possible community of innovators to solve a specific problem or challenge. 

Rather than specifying what a solution must look like, challenge prizes set out a clearly defined goal, along with information on how success will be measured and invite innovators to propose how they think it could be solved. This approach allows for a wide range of solutions to be considered.

The Smart Data Challenge Prize aims to “identify Smart Data use cases that utilise multiple datasets from sectors across the economy, and build prototypes, demonstrating their market feasibility and potential to deliver real-world benefits for consumers and businesses (pending implementation of Smart Data schemes).”

By “Smart Data” we mean the secure sharing of customer data, upon the customers’ request, with Authorised Third-party Providers (ATPs).

The Smart Data Challenge Prize is funded by the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) and is delivered by Challenge Works and delivery partners, including the Open Data Institute (ODI) and Smart Data Foundry (SDF).

The Eligibility Criteria for applying for the Smart Data Challenge Prize are:

• Any UK registered incorporated entity (or group of UK registered incorporated entities) is eligible to submit one or more entries
• Teams may apply as a single lead entity or as a consortium. Consortia must nominate a lead entity

The lead entity must be UK-based. The prize must be paid into a UK-based bank account in the name of the lead entity.

Yes, you have to be based in the UK to apply.

Individuals are not able to apply for the Smart Data Challenge Prize. To apply for the challenge, entrants must be a UK registered incorporated entity (or group of entities).

Yes you can apply with a pre-existing project.

No, there is no match funding requirement. 

You are able to apply for the Smart Data Challenge Prize even if you have received government subsidies that count towards the Minimum Financial Assistance (MFA) threshold. We will, however, ask you to declare this as part of our assessment process.

You can apply for the Smart Data Challenge Prize via the application form here.

We use the information provided on the entry form to judge your application. We recommend that you give yourself enough time to present your solution and all the required information in the best manner possible.

No, there is no registration fee to apply.

No, you are not able to edit your application once submitted. We recommend you save your application as a draft until you are confident it is complete. Alternatively, you can download a copy of the application form on the entry page to draft your application in, before uploading it to the submission portal. 

We will initially assess and judge all the entries submitted and 10 finalists will be selected. These 10 finalists will receive financial and non financial support to prototype their use case. At the end of the prototyping phase, a winner, a first place runner up and a second place runner up will be selected and a further financial prize will be awarded to these three.

The finalists and runners-up are chosen using the judging criteria that can be found on the website and in the entrant handbook.

Successful finalists will benefit from comprehensive support to accelerate and strengthen the development of their Smart Data solution. This support brings access to experts from the tech and data sectors, business development specialists, and exclusive events tailored for innovator finalists. 

Finalists will join an engaging community of individuals and organisations with an active interest in the future of Smart Data, gaining opportunities to connect, network and receive mentorship. They will be able to request one-to-one or group mentorship with members of the Smart Data Challenge Prize Advisory Group, and have access to a mentoring schedule as well as workshops, webinars and a list of accessible resources for self-paced learning.

We are unable to advise on taxation. Please consult your tax advisor or HMRC in order to determine your tax requirements.

You can contact the team at [email protected].

Yes, you continue to keep the intellectual property of your idea.

Applications are kept confidential within Challenge Works, our delivery partners and the Department for Business and Trade. 

Before making any aspect of your application public, we will consult with you.

The Smart Data sandbox, provided by NayaOne, is a digital environment specially created for finalists in the Smart Data Challenge Prize, designed to support the prototyping of Smart Data solutions. If you are selected as a finalist, the sandbox will give you the tools and data you need to explore and develop your ideas into prototype solutions to demonstrate how Smart Data can transform services across sectors.

The following are the key features of the Smart Data sandbox:

• Data ecosystem: The sandbox provides access to consumer and small business data spanning key sectors such as Banking and Finance, Retail, Transport, Energy and Residential Property. These synthetic datasets have been meticulously developed to mimic real-world data. Given that this data is not currently available and is held by companies, it will allow you to explore and test your ideas without the privacy concerns associated with real personal information.
• Data science and other tools: The sandbox offers a suite of tools to help you bring your solutions to life – through deep analysis, developing machine learning models, and prototyping your ideas.
• APIs: These will allow you to access and integrate the sandbox data seamlessly into your applications.
• Security: The sandbox offers robust security, safeguarding the integrity of all data assets and your intellectual property while enabling you to experiment freely.
• Collaborative space: The sandbox is designed to foster innovation, enabling you to collaborate with other participants (where appropriate), share learnings, and gain valuable insights from mentors.
• Showcase space: This is where you can demonstrate your solution to industry experts, the regulators and government, and the judging panel. This will help deepen understanding of the challenges and barriers to innovation, and of the appropriate regulatory and technical landscape needed to bring the most impactful Smart Data solutions to life.

Whether you’re a developer, entrepreneur, researcher, or simply have a passion for driving positive change, the sandbox can provide the resources and environment to transform your idea into a working prototype of a Smart Data solution – though you will need someone on your team with technical skills to achieve this. Explore the technical details to learn more.

It is difficult for innovators to access and develop solutions using real data about people and businesses, in particular data from the same individuals linked across different sectors. The sandbox synthetic data is generated from Agent Based Simulation, providing a safe, ethical and legal way to provide such data to support development of innovative Smart Data solutions.

The sandbox provides access to a curated collection of datasets relevant to a range of real world problems, informed by the Smart Data Discovery Challenge that concluded in March 2024 and developed in consultation with the Smart Data Challenge Prize Advisory Group.

The synthetic data in the sandbox is provided by Smart Data Foundry, an industry leader in synthetic data whose products have been successfully deployed in complex use cases, such as training machine learning models to detect fraud in finance systems.

Here’s what you can expect:

• Onboarding and familiarisation: You’ll be given an introduction to the platform, shown how to log on, how to access the data and tools, and where to find guidance and resources.
• Ongoing technical support: You’ll be part of a dedicated slack channel giving you access to data and technical support from Smart Data Foundry and Nayaone. You’ll also have the opportunity to attend drop-in support clinics where you can pick the brains of the data and sandbox builders.
• Exploration and data preparation: Dive into the data, understand its structure, clean and prepare it for processing, bring in your own data, models or code, combine datasets, explore and analyse, unlock new insights, test hypotheses.
• Hands-on innovation: Develop your Smart Data idea, either directly in the sandbox with the provided tools, or on your own platform using the APIs to integrate the synthetic consumer and business data with new services or applications. 
• Prototyping: The focus is on building practical solutions, not just theoretical concepts. Iterate and refine your approach, to build a functional prototype of your solution, web app, tool or service – it might not be glossy or polished, but it will show how consumers and small businesses can benefit from sharing their data in smart ways. 
• Showcase your innovations: The prototypes are the core of your Challenge Prize submission, making your idea more accessible to a non-technical audience. Present your work, explaining your approach, and the potential impacts to demonstrate the transformative potential of your ideas to the judging panel.