Grand Challenges
Long-term research programmes.
These are not products. They are not promises.
They are questions worthy of exploration.
Six themes
Materials
Can we build the next generation of sustainable materials?
Water
Can clean water become effectively limitless?
Mobility
Can transport become cleaner, quieter and kinder?
Energy
Can abundant clean energy become accessible to everyone?
Knowledge
Can people preserve everything they learn throughout life?
Community
Can technology quietly create more moments of kindness?
Not products. Questions. Each theme holds long-term research programmes and the practical projects that come out of them.
Can products move safely without disposable packaging?
Most packaging exists for a few days of transit and then becomes a disposal problem for everyone downstream.
What we currently know
- Reusable transit crates already work inside closed loops such as grocery and automotive.
- Damage rates, not material cost, decide what packaging a shipper accepts.
- Return legs are the expensive part, not the container.
What remains unsolved
- Open-loop returns across carriers nobody owns.
- Protection engineered into the vehicle rather than the box.
- A price per trip that beats a cardboard box used once.
Research themes
Potential impact
Global
Potential collaborators
Packaging engineers · Carriers and 3PLs · Retailers · Materials researchers · Universities
We don’t assume we’ll solve this. We believe it’s worth asking anyway.
Research question inside this challenge
The Last Tube — can toothpaste reach the mouth without leaving behind a disposable plastic tube?Can affordable clean drinking water become dramatically more accessible?
Water is heavy, local and unevenly distributed. Moving it is expensive; making it where it is needed is not yet cheap enough.
What we currently know
- Atmospheric harvesting works, but energy per litre remains the limit.
- Desalination costs are dominated by energy and membrane life.
- Household reuse is often blocked by regulation, not physics.
What remains unsolved
- Low-energy condensation at household scale.
- Storage that keeps water safe without constant treatment.
- Maintenance simple enough to survive real use.
Research themes
Potential impact
Global
Potential collaborators
Water engineers · Universities · NGOs · Materials scientists · Local authorities
We don’t assume we’ll solve this. We believe it’s worth asking anyway.
What material does humanity still need?
Several unsolved problems are waiting on a material that does not exist yet, in the way the hypocaust waited on cheap piping.
What we currently know
- Barrier performance and compostability still pull against each other.
- Composites are strong but rarely separable at end of life.
- Low-carbon construction materials exist but scale slowly.
What remains unsolved
- A compostable barrier that holds pressure and moisture for years.
- Composites that come apart cleanly on purpose.
- Structural materials that store less carbon debt than they save.
Research themes
Potential impact
Global
Potential collaborators
Materials scientists · Universities · Manufacturers · Chemists · Product engineers
We don’t assume we’ll solve this. We believe it’s worth asking anyway.
Can roads become significantly more durable while reducing environmental impact?
Road maintenance is a permanent public cost, and the surface itself is a major source of particulate pollution.
What we currently know
- Pavement life is limited by water ingress and thermal cycling.
- Tyre and road wear now rival exhaust as a pollution source.
- Self-healing binders work in the lab at small scale.
What remains unsolved
- Surfaces that last decades without repeated resurfacing.
- Lower-carbon binders that behave under heavy freight.
- Measuring wear honestly across a whole network.
Research themes
Potential impact
National
Potential collaborators
Civil engineers · Highways authorities · Materials researchers · Universities · Contractors
We don’t assume we’ll solve this. We believe it’s worth asking anyway.
Can transport become calmer and more cooperative?
Most frustration on the road comes from not knowing what the vehicle in front is about to do, or how long anything will take.
What we currently know
- Intent signalling is cheaper and nearer than full autonomy.
- Journey confidence reduces stress more than journey speed.
- Telematics already carries most of the data required.
What remains unsolved
- A commercial reason to signal something you gain nothing from.
- Shared standards for intent across fleets and makers.
- Measuring calm rather than throughput.
Research themes
Potential impact
National
Potential collaborators
Fleet operators · Telematics companies · OEMs · Insurers · Behavioural researchers
We don’t assume we’ll solve this. We believe it’s worth asking anyway.
Can the next generation of sweetness come from nature?
Sugar is unmatched for taste and cooking behaviour. Every alternative trades away something — flavour, heat stability, cost, availability or approval — which is why research continues worldwide.
What we currently know
- Stevia, monk fruit, allulose and erythritol each solve part of the problem, none solves all of it.
- Sugar does structural work in baking: browning, bulk, moisture and texture, not only sweetness.
- Precision fermentation can now produce sweet proteins at small scale.
- Regulatory approval differs by country, so availability is not the same as existence.
What remains unsolved
- A naturally derived sweetener with no bitter or cooling aftertaste.
- Heat and pH stability that survives real baking, not just cold drinks.
- A cost per kilo that competes with commodity sugar at manufacturing scale.
- Evidence and approval that hold up across multiple regulators.
The ideal material
- Naturally derived
- Tastes like sugar
- No bitter aftertaste
- Suitable for baking
- Stable when heated
- Affordable
- Sustainably produced
- Kind to teeth
- Appropriate for people managing blood sugar (subject to scientific evidence and regulatory approval)
These are design goals, not claims.
Research themes
Potential impact
Global
Potential collaborators
Food scientists · Plant biologists · Fermentation companies · Universities · Food manufacturers
We don’t assume we’ll solve this. We believe it’s worth asking anyway.
What material doesn’t exist today that humanity most needs?
We are not claiming to have discovered a new element. We are asking which missing material is holding back the most problems at once, and what it would have to achieve.
What we currently know
- Several stalled problems are waiting on a material, not on an idea.
- Most breakthroughs arrive from labs already working on adjacent chemistry.
- Scale, cost and recyclability decide adoption far more often than raw performance.
What remains unsolved
- A battery material without scarce minerals.
- A carbon-negative construction material.
- A fully recyclable electronic material.
- A plastic alternative that safely biodegrades in the ocean.
- A lightweight, ultra-strong alloy for transport.
- A membrane that makes desalination far cheaper and less energy-intensive.
- A catalyst that helps produce clean fuels more efficiently.
Research themes
Potential impact
Global
Potential collaborators
Universities · Materials scientists · Chemists · Engineers · Manufacturers
We don’t assume we’ll solve this. We believe it’s worth asking anyway.
Can hand drying become dramatically better?
Hand drying is one of the most repeated interactions in public life, and almost nobody enjoys it. Noise, energy, speed and hygiene are still being traded against each other.
What we currently know
- Jet dryers are fast but loud enough to distress children and some disabled users.
- Warm-air dryers are quieter but slow, so people leave with wet hands.
- Paper is pleasant and hygienic but produces continuous waste and restocking cost.
What remains unsolved
- Drying in under ten seconds at conversational noise levels.
- Airflow that removes water without redistributing it around the room.
- Surfaces and filters that stay hygienic with minimal maintenance.
Research themes
Potential impact
Global
Potential collaborators
Universities · Manufacturers · Hospitality · Healthcare · Acoustic engineers
We don’t assume we’ll solve this. We believe it’s worth asking anyway.
Can curiosity become part of everyday education?
Schools are good at teaching answers. Asking a meaningful question is a separate skill, and it is the one research actually runs on.
What we currently know
- Children ask fewer questions each year they spend in formal education.
- Real scientists and engineers are usually happy to answer a good question from a class.
- Open-ended challenges engage students who disengage from marked work.
What remains unsolved
- A format teachers can run without extra workload.
- Assessment that rewards a good question, not only a correct answer.
- Keeping a curiosity archive alive across school years.
Research themes
Potential impact
Global
Potential collaborators
Teachers · Schools · Universities · Museums · Researchers
We don’t assume we’ll solve this. We believe it’s worth asking anyway.
Can we better understand how other species experience the world?
Welfare and conservation decisions are made from the outside. Understanding perception from the inside would change what we consider acceptable.
What we currently know
- Many species sense frequencies, fields and smells we cannot register at all.
- Behavioural data is plentiful; interpretation is the hard part.
- Stress markers can be measured without invasive procedures in some species.
What remains unsolved
- Reading intent and state without projecting human assumptions onto it.
- Welfare measures that hold up across very different nervous systems.
- Field-deployable sensing that doesn't disturb the animal being studied.
Research themes
Potential impact
Global
Potential collaborators
Ethologists · Vets · Conservation groups · Universities · Sensor engineers
We don’t assume we’ll solve this. We believe it’s worth asking anyway.
Can everyday life become quieter?
Noise is a health issue treated as an aesthetic one. It affects sleep, learning, recovery and stress, and almost nobody owns the problem.
What we currently know
- Above roughly 40km/h, tyre noise dominates over engine noise, so electric vehicles help less than expected.
- Quiet surfaces exist but wear faster and cost more to maintain.
- Perceived noise depends on character and timing as much as decibels.
What remains unsolved
- Low-noise road surfaces that survive heavy freight.
- Appliances designed for sound quality, not just sound level.
- A measure of urban calm that planners can actually use.
Research themes
Potential impact
National
Potential collaborators
Acousticians · Highways authorities · Manufacturers · Urban planners · Universities
We don’t assume we’ll solve this. We believe it’s worth asking anyway.
Research disciplines
AI is one discipline among many — never the centrepiece.
Our philosophy
We believe progress starts with better questions.
Some experiments become companies. Some become partnerships. Some inspire others.
Some remain unfinished until new science or engineering makes them possible.
Every experiment has value.