The impact of challenge prize Ratkaisu 100 three years on

This report examines the impact of Sitra’s challenge prize Ratkaisu 100 three years after it took place in 2016–2017. The report is based on qualitative in-depth interviews conducted in June 2020 with each of the 15 teams that participated in the six month incubation phase of the challenge prize.

By mobilising the concept of an ‘idea journey’, we examine evidence of first, the direct social impact made by the teams and their ideas, and second, individual and team-level learnings resulting from the challenge prize.

We begin by offering four contrasting (anonymised) case narratives to demonstrate the various paths that teams and their ideas have progressed through in the period after the chal­lenge prize. We then explore the team decisions behind quitting owing to lack of funding, to lack of incentives to leave a comfortable pre-existing job, and perceptions that prevailing social structures are too resistant to change.

We conclude by examining obstacles to achieving change, and offer six critical questions concerning how future prize organisers can move from triggering new teams in the short term, to supporting resilient social innovation teams and transformations over years, even decades.