The Scottish Government

The Saltire Prize has generated a great deal of interest and the backing of several high profile individuals and organisations.

• Andris Piebalgs, EU Energy Commissioner

  "I warmly welcome the strong leadership shown by the Scottish Government in launching the £10m Saltire Prize. The EU is unique across the globe for having binding national targets for energy and climate. These are ambitious targets. We aim to cut carbon emissions by 20% and have set a 20% renewable energy target - both to be achieved by 2020.
  
  "Achievement of these targets will require the development of radical and innovative solutions. No Member State can tackle today's energy and climate change targets on its own and the Saltire Prize is a global call to action. This prize provides an important platform to seek out the important technological breakthroughs that can help unlock the enormous potential of marine renewable energy.
  
  "The Saltire Prize challenge has been set! The prize is there to be won! I would like to extend my thanks to all those pioneers preparing to take part in the Competition - good luck with your endeavours and I will follow your progress with interest and admiration."

• James Lovelock, originator of the Gaia Hypothesis (now Gaia Theory), has been an Honorary Visiting Fellow of Green College, University of Oxford since 1994 said:
  
  "Scotland is right to look to the oceans for its long term energy source. Necessity is. the mother of invention and the Saltire Prize will make the best idea practical."
• Stephen Salter is Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design at the School of Engineering and Electronics, University of Edinburgh said:
  
  "Veterans of the first British renewable energy programme find it strange and exciting that there is now a Government in Scotland that genuinely wants renewable energy to succeed and is doing something rather than just talking. We hope that the Saltire Challenge Prize will give long term benefits to a wide range of renewable technologies."
• Professor Chris Rapley is Director of the Science Museum. He is well known as an expert in climate change science and was previously Director of the British Antarctic Survey said:
  
  "I am greatly impressed by the Scottish Government's decision to establish a £10 million prize for advances in clean energy. I can think of no better way to highlight the key role of science, engineering and enterprise in addressing the priority issues of the modern world, and of building on Scotland's long and distinguished record of technical and business innovation."
• Dr Bernie Bulkin of the Sustainable Development Commission said:
  
  "The Saltire Prize will help drive innovation and will attract the interest of engineers, developers and investors from across the world to help marine energy play its part in delivering low carbon electricity for Scotland and abroad. We know that if this is to happen then we need to get test projects into the water and to see rapid learning from early schemes. The industry cannot overcome the many challenges faced in capturing the energy from our seas without innovative government support. This prize is an ambitious way to encourage innovation and faster learning."
• Dr Dan Barlow, Acting Director, WWF Scotland said:
  
  "Clean green energy has a critical role to play in tackling climate change and Scotland is ideally placed to harness the fantastic renewable resource available. The Saltire Prize will help ensure Scotland makes the most of our renewable potential, a key part of developing a low carbon economy."
• Duncan McLaren, Chief Executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland said:
  
  "FoES warmly welcomes the Saltire prize. At a time when other Governments are pushing the bankrupt nuclear option, it is great to see funding to stimulate real renewable solutions, inspiring technical innovation to enable the social transformation needed to avoid catastrophic climate change."
• Jason Ormiston, Chief Executive of Scottish Renewables said:
  
  "The Saltire Prize is sure to inspire amazing and captivating engineering but perhaps as challenging will be identifying the problem which, when solved, will have the biggest impact globally but also benefit Scotland by utilising its abundant renewable energy resources."
• Professor Jim McDonald, Chairman of the Energy Technology Partnership said:
  
  "This is an enormously exciting development for the international energy research and technology communities. It demonstrates Scotland's strength of commitment to addressing the challenges of sustainable energy and climate change as well as confidence in our technological leadership in key energy themes such as wave and tidal power, wind energy, electrical networks, carbon capture and storage, oil & gas and demand side reduction technologies.
  
  "The Scottish academic community has an exemplary research partnership between Universities, industry and the public sector and values highly the benefits of international partnership and collaboration. Our Energy Technology Partnership is approaching "green energy" research opportunities in a cooperative, multidisciplinary way that is necessary to make major impacts in such a global issue. The Saltire Prize exemplifies the need to inspire world-class innovation in energy technologies where high risk and reward in research undertaken by industry and academia will lead to the "game changing" discoveries that will secure a clean and sustainable future for our energy systems.
  
  "We welcome the Saltire Prize opportunity and will work together with our international colleagues to rise to the challenge in energy faced by a global community. This will help to put Scotland on the map and highlight our unique research capabilities and technical innovations".