# There are three kinds of programs
You can roughly categorize programs (in the [[weaverUnderstandingProgramsProjects2010]] sense) into three different categories:
1. Exploration
2. Integrative
3. Challenge (Prizes are a subset of challenges)
1. Exploration-type programs use divergent but thematically-related projects to expand or narrow frontiers and test local critical paths.
2. Integrative projects pull things towards a narrow frontier and help reveal global critical paths (per raoGUTS)
3. Challenges have no opinion about paths but are open calls to go for a very narrow frontier
Obviously, most programs are a linear combination of the three types
### Related
* [[raoGUTSGrandUnified2018]]