Greg Möller described the scene — the temperature had dropped below freezing. Snow fell silently to the ground. Ten teams from around the world used nine square meters each to transform the algae-ridden waters of Holland Marsh in Ontario, Canada into fresh, clean drinking water. Beside the blue shipping containers, UI professor Möller admired the Clean Water Machine, his team’s contribution to the chaos.
Möller presented “Grand Innovation Prizes are Absolutely Challenging Universities to Think Differently About Their Interactions” at the Malcolm Renfrew Interdisciplinary Colloquium Tuesday afternoon. He shared how academic challenges and prizes encourage discovery and innovation in the context of the George Barley Clean Water Science Prize.
“(We are doing this for) the joy of discovery,” Möller said. “Very simply stated, my definition, is that discovery is the ascendency of solution. We are all challenged with problems, sometimes overcome by problems, overcome by negativity, things that don’t work in society, in our lives. Discovery is the ascendency of solution. We lift up and there is a lot of hard work in that lifting exercise.”
Möller has worked for the past three years with Team WaterQuest, which includes Möller, soil scientist Dan Strawn and mechanical engineer Martin Baker, to compete for the prize. Teams from around the world compete to find a solution to the poisonous algae blooms wreaking havoc on fresh water sources for a grand prize of $10,000,000.
Möller has been involved with the competition since 2012, when the Everglades Foundation invited scientists from across the globe to advise them in creating the competition. More than 100 teams entered the first two phases of the competition in 2016.
Only ten teams qualified to move on to the third stage while four moved to the final stage. In 2018, Möller received word that Team WaterQuest had qualified for the final stage of the competition.
Academic prizes and grants work differently, Möller said. Grants give recipients money before a project begins and require that funding be used in a certain way, he said. Prizes do not give recipients money until after a project has been completed and are less strict about how reward money is used, Möller said.
The two styles of funding drive different types of innovation, Möller said. Grants encourage academics to work independently and accomplish targeted research, he said. Prizes, on the other hand, encourage a competitive yet collaborative type of brainstorming, he said.
He emphasized the importance of participating in the future instead of passively viewing it as an audience..
“I think we all appreciate the concept of creating a more sustainable future,” Möller said.
Next week, Assistant Professor of Sociology Ryanne Pilgeram will present “Water, Water Everywhere and Not a Drop to Drink: Rural Gentrification’s Impact on Infrastructure on a Former Timber Town.” The talk will take place from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 16 in the Idaho Commons Whitewater room. The event is free and open to the public.
Lex Miller can be reached at [email protected]