What if your toughest problem could be solved in 45-90 days by tapping the world’s smartest problem solvers? And what if it were easier than you ever imagined possible?

InnoCentive is the global leader in crowdsourcing innovation problems to the world’s smartest people who compete to provide ideas and solutions to important business, social, policy, scientific, and technical challenges.

Learn about our Challenge Discovery Program to rapidly develop and launch your own Premium Challenges.

Innovate Better

• Access to InnoCentive’s premier Global Solver Community of 300,000 diverse and creative thinkers and problem solvers from nearly 200 countries.
• Access 13 million+ creative minds through our partnerships with Nature Publishing Group, Scientific American, and others.
• Whether you are looking for new ideas, breakthrough approaches, or a new product design, we have a powerful Challenge product to meet your needs.
• Proven confidentiality and IP transfer options ensure your open innovation efforts with InnoCentive are both secure and reliable.

Innovate Faster

• Ask everyone! With hundreds or even thousands of problem solvers engaged in your problem, you’ll quickly have access to a viable solution faster than ever before.
• Accomplish more by balancing project needs across existing teams and InnoCentive’s Global Solver Community to drive better innovation ROI inside and outside the organization.
• Receive a novel idea or solution to a problem that you can act on in as few as 45 days.

Innovate More Cost Effectively

• Don’t pay for failure! For technical or scientific Challenges, you only pay awards for solutions that meet your criteria and needs.
• Never pay extra for IP transfer/ownership – it is included in the cost of the Challenge.

The InnoCentive Premium Challenge Process

An InnoCentive Premium Challenge is a well-formed problem whose solution has high value to an organization. It is specific, detailed, actionable, and delivers a measureable outcome. A Challenge can come in a variety of forms, from pure idea generation – a broad question formulated to obtain access to new ideas – to a complex technical or scientific problem that requires more intellectual rigor. Via InnoCentive’s proven methodology and fully facilitated process, a Premium Challenge is developed with the help of our PhD-educated subject matter experts, posted to our global community of problem Solvers in the form of a competition, tracked, rated, and the submitted solutions evaluated and awarded.

Get started today with Premium Challenges! Learn about our Challenge Discovery Program.

Your Fully Facilitated Challenge Process

Our experienced team of Challenge experts – PhDs in a variety of fields, from biology to material sciences to computer sciences – are engaged in the Challenge process from beginning to end. An expert works with you to formulate a well-crafted Challenge that clearly decomposes and articulates the problem you are trying to solve and the specific criteria against which solutions will be evaluated. A Challenge is crafted in such a way as to protect your anonymity – should you desire it to be so, since some companies want to promote their Challenge to drive interest in them – and our team fully manages intellectual property transfers/licensing as well.

Once the Challenge is drafted, it is posted to InnoCentive’s 300,000-strong Global Solver Community which includes creative and diverse minds from around the world. Options are also available to extend the reach of a Premium Challenge to millions of additional Solvers through our strategic partnerships with Nature Publishing Group and Scientific American.

During the posting period, our experts respond to any Solver questions or requests for information. After the Challenge solutions have been received and the Challenge posting period ends, our experts rank the submissions to aid you in selecting the solution(s) that best meets the criteria and your needs. Once you have chosen the winner(s), we manage verification of the Solver’s identity, obtain the Solver Agreement and necessary employer waiver, transfer the award to the Solver, and execute the appropriate IP treatment.

InnoCentive Premium Challenge Types

InnoCentive’s expert PhDs will help you select the best Challenge type for your solution needs, timing considerations, IP requirements, and so on. Click here to learn more. Common Challenge types include:

• Ideation: A global collaboration for producing a breakthrough idea, these Challenges rapidly engage Solvers and accumulate novel submissions.
• Theoretical: A Challenge posting that requires more in-depth written proposals and often includes details on potential implementation options.
• Reduction-to-Practice (RTP): A prototype that shows an idea in actual practice (though on a non-commercial scale) and requires an artifact (e.g., physical evidence).
• Prodigy "Big Data": A computational Challenge with an online scoring and feedback component, often used for statistical analysis, predictions, or optimization of computer programs.
• Novel Molecule Challenge (NMC): A request for various non-commercial chemical compounds, proteins, extracts, polymers, and DNA sequences.
• Electronic Request for Proposal (eRFP): A request for a partner or supplier to provide technology, materials, or expertise.