The British Cræft Prize

At Heritage Crafts, our mission has always been to celebrate, support and safeguard the traditional skills that form such a vital part of our national identities. However, safeguarding does not mean standing still. As the saying goes, our work is “not to preserve ashes, but to light a new fire”. It is with this spirit of renewal that we are delighted to announce our official support for the British Cræft Prize.

What is the British Cræft Prize?

Led by Nation of Artisans, the British Cræft Prize is a major new national award offering a total prize fund of £60,000. It is a call to arms for the “mavericks and misfits” of the making world – the makers, engineers, technologists and designers who refuse to see heritage and high-tech as being at odds.

The prize seeks to find ingenious products or processes that fuse the deep wisdom of heritage craft with the cutting-edge technologies of the future. Whether it is a physical artefact or a radical redesign of a manufacturing method, the goal is to forge something that benefits Britain and the wider world.

Reclaiming ‘Cræft’

The use of the Anglo-Saxon spelling ‘cræft’ is a deliberate choice, inspired by the work of Heritage Crafts Ambassador Dr Alex Langlands in his 2018 book of the same name. Cræft is far more than just the manual skill required to make an object. It represents a virtuous application of knowledge and power – a deep, material “know-how” gained through intimate familiarity with our environment.

In an age of mass-produced, forgettable manufacturing that lack soul, the British Cræft Prize champions a different kind of AI: Artisanal Intelligence. This is the belief that by combining the material intelligence of the past with the tools of tomorrow, we can solve modern challenges with integrity, beauty and resourcefulness.

How the prize works

The competition is designed to move beyond mere concepts and into the realm of tangible reality. The process will follow a clear path from proposal to prototype:

• The shortlist – six finalists will be selected based on the ingenuity of their proposals. Each will receive a £5,000 production grant to help refine and realise their project.
• The production phase – finalists will spend two months building their finished products or methods, which will be suitable for public exhibition.
• The winner – one overall champion will be awarded a further £30,000 no-strings-attached grant to help scale their invention.

Entries will be judged against six core criteria: ingenuity, cræft depth, beauty, usefulness and scalability, integrity and their contribution to our future heritage.

How to apply

We believe that the skills on our Red List of Endangered Crafts are not just relics of the past but are essential toolkits for the future. We encourage anyone in our community who is pushing the boundaries of what it means to make in the 21st century to apply.

For more details on eligibility and how to submit your proposal, please visit www.nationofartisans.com/prize.