CGIAR

Key innovation and scaling concepts

Innovation: New, improved, or adapted outputs or groups of outputs such as products, technologies, services and institutional arrangements with high potential to contribute to positive impacts when used at scale.

Scaling: Intentional investments, strategies and processes aimed at increasing innovation readiness and/innovation use to contribute to positive impacts at scale.

Innovation Packages: Combinations of interrelated innovations and enabling conditions that, together, can lead to transformation and impact at scale in a specific context.

Scaling Readiness: Evidence-based approach to support the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of strategies to scale innovations at project or portfolio level.

CGIAR staff specializing in taking innovations to scale have been training people in use of a “Scaling Readiness” approach that CGIAR adapted and rolled out in 2022 to help ensure that CGIAR’s successful research innovations go to scale. Dubbed “Innovation Packages and Scaling Readiness (IPSR)” by CGIAR, this methodology originated in methods developed by many others, including NASA’s Technology Readiness, scaling experts in the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas (2011–2021), and others in universities such as Wageningen University & Research.

This IPSR methodology is a key part of CGIAR’s Performance and Results Management Framework and Strategy. CGIAR’s 32 Initiatives use IPSR processes and tools to track innovation development, support innovation packaging, assess scaling readiness and co-design scaling strategies with partners.

CGIAR scaling specialists Edwin Kang’ethe, Nicoletta Buono, Marc Schut and Iddo Dror have conducted four facilitator trainings in 2023—in Kenya, Mexico, Ethiopia and Thailand. More than 90 experts are now trained in organizing and facilitating one-day workshops to develop “innovation packages” and assess them for their scaling readiness. These packages combine research innovations with the “enabling conditions” that— taken together and suiting a particular context—can best take a given innovation to scale.

Below, Kang’ethe and Buono discuss how these 3.5-day trainings work. Following this, four participants in the trainings describe just what they got out of their participation.

Q: What’s the purpose of the workshops?

Edwin Kang’ethe: CGIAR’s Initiative teams cannot rely on the few CGIAR IPSR staff to facilitate all the workshops needed to develop innovation packages (there are currently 32 Initiatives and, literally, many hundreds of innovations they are working on!). So this series of trainings aims to train a group of facilitators to lead subsequent workshops to develop and assess “innovation packages” for specific contexts.

Our trainings focus on developing “innovation packages”, one of three critical doors needed to scale innovations. The first door is defining an innovation—what we call ‘innovation profiling’—in tangible ways. The second door is packaging an innovation—some call this “bundling innovations”—to suit a particular context. The third door is developing a scaling strategy.

Nicoletta Buono: We’re not yet at the strategy level. And not every innovation package will proceed to the next step of strategy development—this will depend on their scaling readiness and the demand from partner to engage in scaling strategy development.

Q: What happens in the trainings?

Nicoletta Buono: The training consists of two days of instruction in organizing and facilitating a one-day workshop to develop an innovation package. This is followed by one day in which the participants observe an actual workshop run by a different set of people who are developing an actual innovation package. (Participants find this observation highly useful: theory is one thing, actual is something else!) We end with a half-day of reflection. So the training event is three and a half days in total.

Both the facilitation and the training are intentionally “low-tech”—few PowerPoints allowed!—which creates a very human, a very social, kind of experience. There’s lots of time for everyone to engage and express their different experiences. We want the participants to harvest what’s in the room through a culture of sharing and adapting. With all the participants involved in innovation scaling in one way or another, they thus learn as much from each other as from we trainers.

Q: What were some of the challenges you faced in running the trainings?

Nicoletta Buono: Our use of technical terms that have specific meaning for us, like “innovation readiness” and “innovation use”! These are not easy for newcomers to the IPSR approach to grasp. Another challenge is that the participants do not come to these workshops with a budget in hand for the time and financial resources they will require to organize and facilitate workshops to develop innovation packages.

Edwin Kang’ethe: Some of the participants also came thinking they were going to be trained to be great facilitators. But we assume that our participants are already fairly good facilitators; our focus is on the process of developing an innovation package.

Q: What did participants value most about the workshops?
Nicoletta Buono: A “buzz” was definitely created. These workshops created a space for people to engage with innovation and scaling topics—a space that wasn’t there before.

Edwin Kang’ethe: This specialized training is a demonstration in state-of-the-art facilitation methods. Ewen Le Borgne, a master of “process change” and former CGIAR knowledge management expert, co-developed the design of this training—its approach and process—with us. He helped us to think through what we wanted to achieve in every session. And he changed a lot about “how” we went about getting there. Many found the process provided them with a structured process for managing the ‘innovation journey’—and a way to remove roadblocks on that journey that they’ve been struggling with.

Participant feedback

What was most useful about the CGIAR workshop?

Mandla Nkomo (Kenya):

For the first two days of my “Training of Facilitators” (Kenya, May 2023), three CGIAR facilitators—Marc Schut, Edwin Kang’ethe and Iddo Dror—walked us through the methodology and trained us in the steps of CGIAR’s “Innovation Packages and Scaling Readiness” (IPSR) approach. On the third day, we became “flies on the wall” while we watched a “live” innovation packaging exercise (this one was to commercialize fodder crops in Kenya). What I found really incredible was that combination. Many instructional trainings just hand you a manual and advise you to “figure it out”. But this CGIAR training deliberately joined the instructional component with an opportunity to see those instructions played out for real. And rather than having us sit facing the front of the room, as in a classroom, or at tables arranged around the room, we all sat in a circle. As an African, I loved that—you can eyeball everyone around you! And the interactions were richer for it. I had never before been in a meeting where I sat in a circle, where I didn’t have to listen to one PowerPoint presentation after another (they were kept to a bare minimum), and where I couldn't open my laptop!

Jane Kamau (Kenya):
The process used was great—more conversational than instructional—unexpectedly, “lightweight”. The process let me dive deep into the whole process of innovation—not just as a scientist, but also as an end user. The third day of the training, when we observed an actual one-day “Innovation Packages Workshop”, was particularly useful—a highly practical way to absorb all the previous training.

Blanca Arce (Colombia):

“A daily practical exercise of the steps of the scaling readiness methodology was performed with clear understanding of its implementation.” 

Did anything surprise you?

Jane Kamau (Kenya):

For the longest I’ve been very lonely in my scaling work. This CGIAR training brought so many people together who work on scaling, including colleagues from my own center—the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA). I had never known so many were interested in scaling work! Or that there existed such a big community of scalers! And my hard-core scientists tend to be wary of external partnerships, shying away in particular from the private sector. It’s good to see CGIAR embracing scaling so well and so thoroughly. Our scientists are finding that their “external” stakeholders are good people with good intentions—just like them!

Blanca Arce (Colombia):

What surprised me first of all was the capacity, dedication and willingness of the coaches to listen to the participants. I was also surprised by how the scaling readiness methodology has been applied in the CGIAR Initiatives. CIMMYT and CGIAR’s AgriLAC Resiliente Initiative shared lessons on how the methodology can be applied.

What might be improved?

Mandla Nkomo (Kenya):

Relevant materials are sent to participants before the 3.5-day training begins, including an e-learning course on “innovation and scaling”. I wonder if including a short video or some other product in those pre-training materials would help participants to get up to speed quicker by introducing the key elements and terms of the training—the “tools of the trade” as it were—before the physical meeting begins. In any case, it took quite a bit of time for most people in the physical meeting to get their heads around these terms.

Blanca Arce (Colombia):

To give the participants more practice in implementing the methodology, perhaps each participant could prepare a short, specific exercise using their own data.

How have you used your training?

Mandla Nkomo (Kenya):

Following my training in Kenya, Edwin Kang’ethe and I (as a newly trained facilitator) delivered a one-day “IPSR Workshop” in Ghana at the beginning of last month. It went very well. The engagement levels in that Ghana workshop were quite high. The quality of the 30 participants was also high. That's not accidental—the facilitators’ training had instructed us in steps to take to get a successful workshop like that going, which includes inviting the right subject matter experts. Much value was added by Edwin and I by mapping what—specifically—every participant in our Ghana workshop was likely to bring to the table.

Jane Kamau (Kenya):
I followed up my 3-5-day CGIAR facilitators’ training by organizing and facilitating a one-day “IPSR Workshop” in Uganda for 25 people. This came at a particularly good time, as my IITA team was getting ready to scale out Aflasafe to make it commercially available. This workshop brought something new—an opportunity to freely engage with potential stakeholders before we started commercializing Aflasafe—and before we reached out to potential investors. This enhanced IITA’s understanding of what other stakeholders wanted—and enhanced our preparedness before Aflasafe was rolled out commercially.

Aldir Parisi (Brazil):

My team is conducting a large project in Brazil funded by the World Bank (“Bahia Que Produz e Alimenta”). The second five-year phase of the project begins in 2024. We applied the methodology we learned in the CGIAR facilitators training to test whether a solution we’d developed could be scaled much wider. After returning from the CGIAR training in Mexico, we organized a one-day “IPSR Workshop” with about 20 experts attending. This workshop was extremely successful. The CGIAR methods we put to use worked exactly as planned. We’ll be using these scaling methods throughout the duration of our project.

Last thoughts?

Jane Kamau (Kenya):

Getting the right mix of stakeholders to participate in an “Innovation Packaging” training is key. I’ll follow this same CGIAR scaling process in future. These scaling methods avoid assumptions that can come back to bite us later. I hope more and more people embrace these CGIAR scaling methods!

Mandla Nkomo (Kenya):

The “Scaling Readiness” methodology has been around CGIAR for several years now. In that time people have formed a lot of opinions about what it is and what it isn't about, about what it can do and what it can’t do. I think CGIAR’s “Innovation Packages and Scaling Readiness” team needs to showcase how far this concept has come from what many people interacted with maybe 4–5 years ago. We've now got a superb tool: CGIAR should consider some kind of communications campaign to get that across to more people. Unequivocally, CGIAR’s “Innovation Packages and Scaling Readiness” is a true enabler—a powerful tool for managing the innovation process, for helping CGIAR innovations to walk right out of our laboratory doors and right into farmers’ fields and farmers’ hands.

More information

In December 2023, CGIAR launched a “Scaling Directory” of trained facilitators in CGIAR’s “Innovation Packages and Scaling Readiness” approach. Anyone seeking facilitators certified by CGIAR to help organize and lead Innovation Packages and Scaling Readiness trainings—and anyone simply wanting to connect with peers in the field of innovation scaling—will find this directory a unique resource. Check it out here: www.cgiar.org/scalingdirectory (note that more interactive features will be added to the directory as it evolves).

We welcome your feedback! Please send it to Agnes Schneidt, a.schneidt [at] cgiar.org.