LSE Spark Award for Innovation

New LSE Spark Award for Innovation 

The LSE Innovation & Impact (I&I) team is pleased to launch the LSE Spark Award, a new internal award to recognise and support the further development of sustainable new products, services, methodologies or processes with potential to lead to the betterment of society. The winner of the Spark Award will receive £10,000, which may be spent on any activities or outputs that demonstrably advance their project’s goals. Up to two runner-up prizes of £5,000 may also be awarded. Winners will be able to work with the I&I team to develop funded activity.

The LSE Spark Award for Innovation provides an opportunity to explore, identify, test and implement models for the delivery of sustainable impact.

We invite applications from LSE researchers in any discipline and at any career stage, who want to explore a practical response to any social, economic or environmental challenge based on their research. You don’t need a fully formed solution, but we are looking for evidence of a thorough understanding of the problem, and a well thought-through idea about how you might tackle it. We hope to find and support solutions with the potential to deliver benefits at scale, grounded in research knowledge, insights, outputs or expertise.

To apply, send a response to the following three questions to innovation@lse.ac.uk by Friday 14th March 2025. You may send your response either as an email or as a Word or PDF attachment.    

  • What’s the real-world problem you want to address?
    Max. 200 words. 

    Please note that we will not fund academic research or projects responding to purely academic challenges. 
  • What’s your proposed solution or response to that problem?
    Max. 300 words 
  • Who would use or benefit from your solution and in what ways? 
    Max. 200 words