Overview

Comparison between categorisation approaches used for the suggested idea funding categories and challenge settings

Idea based funding categorisations can be created using a mixture of different approaches. These approaches often have large implications on the complexity, effort and overall costs of handling the categorisation process.

Each of the approaches analysed in this section are compared in how they impact funding categorisation. The outcome from this analysis was that the more effective approaches were determined. These were categorisations that leant towards being broad, inclusive, unique and recurring.

Funding categories have been created based on the more effective categorisation approaches. Adopting these approaches can mean making funding categorisation more simple, easy to use, efficient, scalable or egalitarian.

Using different funding categorisation approaches is also not binary in terms of implementation. A given approach can sit somewhere between each end of a sliding scale. For instance for broad versus specific categorisation approaches the use of a single categorisation would represent the most broad it can be. Two categorisations is slightly less broad than that. Three categorisations would be even less broad, and so on.

There four main approaches for idea based categorisations to consider are:

• Broad vs Specific Categorisations

• Inclusive vs Exclusive Categorisations

• Unique vs Overlapping Categorisations

• Recurring vs Changing Categorisations

Suggested idea funding categories vs challenge settings

Suggested Idea funding categories

• Broad - The suggested idea funding categories uses four broad categories to cover idea based proposals. It also adds a contributor model with two contributor based categories and an experimental category to support ideas and teams.

• Inclusive - All forms of ideas and innovation can be submitted in funding categories.

• Unique - The only current overlapping category is nurturing ideas & teams which accepts any proposal focus area but just puts a cap on the budget requested. The other categories are fully unique.

• Recurring - Funding categories are pre-defined and would be used on a recurring basis. Funding categories would be updated when insights or data provide justifications for making changes.

Challenge settings

• Specific - Anyone in the community can submit challenges. No restrictions are made. Categorisations often have focus area groupings or are goal or objective focussed. There is often a mixture of broad and specific categorisations with a larger majority usually being specific.

• Exclusive - Challenge settings compete with one another each funding round which often leads to creating exclusive categorisations where certain focus areas have little to no funding.

• Overlapping - Every funding the community votes on the categorisations based on all the challenges submitted by the challenge teams. There is no process to ensure the categorisations are unique and not overlapping so most voting outcomes have had focus areas that can be submitted in multiple categorisations.

• Changing - Challenges are submitted each and every funding round meaning the categorisations change all the time. Some challenges from previous rounds also get resubmitted meaning that there can be some form of recurring categorisation however this is never guaranteed.