Insights on Scaling Innovation
JUNE 2017
This paper in the IDIA Insights series focuses on various challenges, lessons learned and practices of funders seeking to take promising development innovations to scale. It draws on the experience and learning of a wide range of bilateral, multilateral, philanthropic and civil society actors who came together in a Working Group on Scaling Innovation facilitated by the International Development Innovation Alliance (IDIA). While it does not represent the formal strategy or approach of any one single agency in the Working Group or IDIA itself, it does reflect areas of overlapping interest and terminology that can be used as a point of reference for interested stakeholders in reflecting on, and enhancing, their own approaches and guidance on scaling innovations.
Scaling innovation is a long, complex and dynamic process. The insights contained herein will therefore benefit from regular review and iteration to accurately capture continuing advances in knowledge and practice. In its current form, this document provides a broad architecture intended to help funders as they navigate the challenging pathways associated with scaling innovation. The insights collected in this paper are also likely to be valuable in helping innovators and partner organizations develop their own scaling approaches, thereby acting as a potential catalyst for deeper and more efficient partnerships.
This paper provides a broad architecture to help funders in navigating the long and complex process of scaling innovation, while also offering guidance to help innovators and partner organisations develop and enhance their own scaling approaches.
These insights have been organised into three discrete (yet complementary and interdependent) areas:
First, dividing the scaling process into six overlapping Stages, stretching on a continuum from ideation through to sustainable scale.
Second, eight Good Practices have been identified across these stages to help funders of development innovation enhance the impact of their support.
Finally, a matrix of Influencing Factors that will either accelerate or constrain the scaling process has been created, with guidance on how funders can use these to initially assess (and then continually monitor) the scalability of an innovation over time.
Together, these scaling stages, good practices, and influencing factors provide funders with an experiential (rather than theoretical) architecture for scaling innovation that may be helpful to inform their own approaches.
