Prize – The Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy

Wilkes Climate Prize Overview

The annual Wilkes Climate Prize is major global award administered by the Wilkes Center that recognizes audacious, scalable, and practical climate solutions positioned to make measurable progress. Each year, by elevating and honoring innovative climate solutions, this University of Utah prize aims to accelerate worldwide progress and encourage technological advances. Our goal is to develop effective climate change solutions quickly for the benefit of people and ecosystems worldwide.

Learn about past Wilkes Climate Prize awards below.

The 2026 Wilkes Climate Prize

The 2026 Wilkes Climate Innovation Prize seeks bold, high-potential solutions that address significant challenges affecting the climate/energy/economy ecosystem and are positioned to make measurable progress toward real-world use.

The Prize is designed to support solutions at a stage where uncertainty remains high, conventional funding or adoption pathways are limited, and targeted support can plausibly influence outcomes. Solutions may be technological, policy-driven, operational, financial, or hybrid.

Applicants may be for-profit or nonprofit organizations, academic teams, public-sector innovators, or mission-driven collaborations from anywhere in the world.

2023 Wilkes Climate Prize

Amount awarded: $1.5 Million

Winning Solution: Lumen Bioscience, a Seattle-based biotech company, for developing a patented mixture of enzyme proteins to drastically reduce methane emissions from dairy and beef cattle.

2024 Wilkes Climate Launch Prize

Amount awarded: $500,000

Winning Solution: Applied Carbon, a Houston-based company, for developing a mobile, in-field technology that converts crop residues into biochar, a stable form of carbon that builds soil health and stays out of the atmosphere permanently.

2025 Wilkes Climate Launch Prize

Amount awarded: $250,000

Winning Solution: Build up Nepal, based in Kathmandu, is providing poor communities a safe and affordable way to build homes using their interlocking Compressed Stabilised Earth Bricks made using locally available materials, with minimal cement, instead of polluting coal-fired bricks.

Runners up: Roca Water and De Novo Foodlabs

2026 Wilkes Climate Innovation Prize