Applications for The Earthshot Prize 2025 are open. With £1 million prize on offer, growᴬᴳ⋅ is helping homegrown innovators put their best foot forward

The Earthshot Prize hopes to ignite the collective hope, imagination, and conviction needed to regenerate our planet by 2030. And for the first time, they’ve enlisted AgriFutures Australia to help.

On the line is a £1 million prize – and the future of humanity.

10 years to repair the world. A global search for transformative solutions. And £1 million in prizemoney for those that can make it happen. The Earthshot Prize is no ordinary innovation challenge.

It’s a bold, urgent mission for people and planet. And for the first time, AgriFutures Australia has been invited to nominate homegrown solutions that can transform the way humanity engages with our world – before irreversible damage occurs.  

Inspired by former US President John F. Kennedy’s 1962 ‘Moonshot,’ which united millions of people around the goal of putting a man on the moon, The Earthshot Prize was launched by Prince William to scale the most innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing environmental challenges.

Called ‘Earthshots,’ those five distinct yet interconnected challenges are:  

• Protect and Restore Nature
• Clean our Air
• Revive our Oceans
• Build a Waste-Free World, and
• Fix our Climate.

Like JFK, Prince William set a 10-year goal to realise his Earthshot – and we’re nearing the halfway mark. But as global climate and nature crises continue to escalate, the need to accelerate scalable, transformative solutions grows more urgent by the day.

The Earthshot approach is simple enough: Urgency + Optimism = Action. And to realise it, they’re incentivising the global innovation community through The Earthshot Prize.

“The Earthshot Prize 2025 is a platform for innovators and changemakers to step up, think big, and prove that transformative change can begin here and now,” explained Harriet Mellish, AgriFutures’ General Manager of Global Innovation Networks.

But with every country, community, industry, and sector potentially harbouring the next transformative solution, the task of unearthing them is colossal. And that’s where the Official Nominators come into their own.

This global network is carefully curated to bring the expertise, networks, and experience needed to identify the solutions that are already having a positive impact now – with the potential to scale for greater impact in the future.

“We are thrilled that AgriFutures has been selected as an Official Nominator for The Earthshot Prize 2025,” said Harriet. “Offered by invitation only, it’s great recognition of our unique connection to the agrifood tech and innovation ecosystem in Australia and New Zealand.”  

“As a rural Research and Development Corporation with cross-sectoral networks and expertise, AgriFutures brings unique perspective to the Earthshot mission: we’re on the ground every day, working with agrifood tech innovators, producers, investors, and end-users, ground truthing which solutions work, and what they need to scale with speed.”

To source nominees, AgriFutures is accepting applications from organisations and individuals. “Earthshot solutions must be scalable, but that doesn’t mean you need to be a startup,” said Harriet

“The common denominator is a commitment to scaling a solution. Nominees could be one founder, or a corporation. They might be a government institution, or a partnership of aligned organisations.”

“Past finalists have included grassroots not-for-profits, tech start-ups, global data monitoring systems, cities and countries,” added Harriet. “They just need a clear path to being transformative.”

The 2025 assessment criteria include not just a relevance to the Earthshots, and the potential for global impact – but a diversity of solution types. “Earthshot is looking for geographic representation, and gender and indigenous representation,” explained Harriet.

“In 2025, that includes an increased focus on solutions emerging from the Asia-Pacific region. And with our links across Australia, New Zealand, and into Asia, AgriFutures is well placed to shine a light on APAC solution providers that could drive real impact.”

AgriFutures’ grow^AG. team will work with innovators to facilitate the nomination process. It’s a neat fit, given the team’s ‘bread and butter’ is supporting innovators to uncover the unique value of their solution, and amplify it through the grow^AG. network.

“It’s not a requirement that nominees be listed on the grow^AG. platform before they apply,” explained Harriet. “Because of that, we're getting some really varied applications from individuals, communities, businesses and organisations who we weren’t aware of – yet who are making real progress towards achieving the five Earthshots.”

Mirroring judging for The Earthshot Prize, grow^AG.’s assessment criteria applies equal weighting to:

• Potential for global impact
• Stage of solution
• Organisational foundations and diversity
• Relevance to Earthshots and cross-cutting enablers.

“A selection panel will assess each application based on the above criteria, “explained Harriet. “And if a nominee is successful in having their name put forward by AgriFutures, they’ll then be invited to complete the second part of the assessment process with The Earthshot Prize team.”

It’s a collaborative process between AgriFutures and the nominee, aimed at enhancing each nominee’s chance of success. “You can use information from the grow^AG. form for the Earthshot part of your application,” said Harriet.

“We’ll also provide nominees with feedback from our assessment panel and one-on-one support to complete their final application with The Earthshot Prize.”

While not every nominee will make it through the nomination process, Harriet explained that every nominee can expect to receive tailored support from AgriFutures.

“The aspiration is that, for all of those that apply, we’ll find a way to support them via grow^AG. – amplifying their solution via the platform in the hope of making connections with investors and partners.”

The £1 million Earthshot Prize 2025 will be awarded to one winner in each of the five Earthshot categories. A pool of 15 finalists (three from each category) will receive specialist coaching and support to unlock new investment, networking, and collaboration opportunities through the Earthshot Prize Fellowship Programme.

Including a weeklong in-person retreat that enables finalists to connect and share ideas for growth, the Fellowship gives finalists unprecedented access to Earthshot’s Global Alliance of mission-aligned business, NGOs and philanthropists, whose tailored support helps innovators to take their One Giant Leap to transformational impact.