Moving Beyond Mapping: A Guide to Ecosystem Measurement

Abstract

In this paper, we argue that equipping ecosystem builders, leaders and community champions with more rigorous methods, such as network analysis, for measuring their impact potential is crucial to driving systems change at scale. We advocate for moving beyond simply mapping an ecosystem to measuring it. This means adding rigor to your efforts by quantifying an ecosystem’s strengths and challenges, its structure and functioning, the influencers and the outliers, and the dynamic interrelationships that exist. These aspects are what matter for ecosystem science