Scaling Readiness

Scaling Readiness: An approach to enhance scaling of innovation

Purpose

Improve the efficiency and impact of research for development programs through critical reflection on how ready innovations are for scaling and what appropriate actions could accelerate or enhance scaling

Expected impact

The use of agricultural innovations at scale is key to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Scaling Readiness offers research for development project teams and organizations such as the CGIAR a toolkit to support the design, implementation and monitoring of scaling strategies at project and portfolio level. Embedding key principles of Scaling Readiness within the One CGIAR performance management systems will increase the likelihood that investments in CGIAR will yield impacts at scale.

Description of Scaling Readiness

Scaling Readiness provides a set of concepts, practices and tools to guide decision-making on scaling of innovation in research for development. Its unique combination of scientific tools, common sense, and pragmatic thinking makes scaling happen. Scaling Readiness supports the design of context-specific innovation packages and assesses each innovation in the package for their readiness to contribute to development outcomes. This provides a basis for identifying the bottlenecks for scaling and the development of strategies to overcome those bottlenecks.

Through its standardized data collection and analysis approach, Scaling Readiness can be used to monitor a portfolio of innovation and scaling investments. It also supports prioritization, and decisions on the advancement of innovations to achieve societal outcomes at scale in the most resource-efficient way.

Examples of use

Scaling Readiness supports the scaling of agronomic, seed system, pest and disease management, variety selection and post-harvest innovations in over 20 projects in 25 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. RTB integrated Scaling Readiness into its competitive Scaling Fund to: (1) assess project proposals for scaling, and (2) support project teams in the development, implementation and monitoring of scaling strategies.

CGIAR centres, such as IITA and ILRI, are embedding principles of Scaling Readiness in their project and performance management systems. Scaling Readiness is also a proposed component of the new stage-gating and performance management framework of the One CGIAR.