Supporting innovations on the path to impact: How can we create the conditions for responsible scaling?
Behind a solution or innovation that successfully moves beyond research, reaches new contexts, and generates impact, there is much more than a good idea: there is evidence, capacity, partnerships, resources, and a network of actors creating the conditions for it to move forward.
- CGIAR
- Climate Action
- resilience
- scaling
Supporting innovations on the path to impact: How can we create the conditions for responsible scaling?
Behind a solution or innovation that successfully moves beyond research, reaches new contexts, and generates impact, there is much more than a good idea: there is evidence, capacity, partnerships, resources, and a network of actors creating the conditions for it to move forward.
At the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, we work to connect these pieces, bringing scaling science closer to those who research, fund, manage, and support innovations. In Panama, this vision is being strengthened through a collaboration with the National Secretariat of Science, Technology and Innovation (SENACYT), the public institution that promotes science, technology, and innovation in the country. This collaboration is built around a shared challenge: how can we support innovations beyond their initial development and create the conditions for those with potential to continue progressing toward impact?
Having a good innovation does not necessarily mean being ready to take it to scale. Between demonstrating that a solution works and enabling it to generate impact, several important questions arise: Does it respond to a real demand? Is there evidence of its results? Who can use or champion it? Does it have the necessary capacities, partnerships, and resources? What could happen if it begins to be used in other contexts?
These questions stem from a central idea in scaling science: impact depends not only on the innovation itself, but also on the conditions that enable it to move forward.