The Scaling Mindset – Shifting from Problems to Solutions. Insights from the Review of CCAFS Scaling Activities, 2019

In the frame of the review of CCAFS scaling activities in 2019, 21 project leaders and –implementers were interviewed about their scaling processes, touching a series of aspects that had been identified as crucial and/or critical by earlier research. Results were analysed with a systemic approach, to draw organisational learnings. The findings were validated with CCAFS core team during their Scaling Workshop in Madrid, May 2019, in which the Core Team also prioritized its programmatic areas of response. This working paper captures the main insights and learnings from both the interviews on project level, followed by the results’ analysis. It then summarized the Core Team workshop’s main discussion points and shortly outlines the programmatic areas of response that CCAFS identified. The learnings and insights on the realities of scaling agricultural innovations presented in this working paper can provide a rich basis for further synthesis and/or deeper research on the different aspects of innovation development and scaling

SMES, Open Innovation and IP Management: Advancing Global Development

[Excerpt] Micro-Small-Medium Enterprises (abbreviated herein henceforth as “SMEs”) are global drivers of technological innovation and economic development. Perhaps their importance has been somewhat eclipsed by the mega-multinational corporate entities. However, whereas the corporations might be conceptualized as towering sequoia trees, SMEs represent the deep, broad, fertile forest floor that nourishes, sustains and regenerates the global economic ecosystem. [. . .] Broadly recognized as engines of economic and global development, SMEs account for a substantial proportion of entrepreneurial activity in both industrialized and developing countries. Indeed, their role as dynamos for technological and economic progress in developing countries is critical and cannot be underemphasized. In industrialized countries, SMEs as major contributors to GDP and private sector employment, in more than a few countries contribute to as much as 60% of the national workforce. In a not unsubstantial portion of developing countries, SMEs are known to employ more than 70% of workforce. [. . .] As foci of technological creativity, SMEs propel long-term growth by facilitating innovation and its diffusion across local, national, regional and international economies. However, innovation immediately begets intellectual property (IP) and the concomitant urgent need to address intellectual property rights (IPR). Hence, to realize the maximum value of innovation, SMEs need to recognize, understand and manage IP in order to protect their IPR and thereby accelerate their innovations towards commercialization; this will, in turn, not only improve their business revenue flow, but ultimately raise the standard of living in their respective countries. IP is thus the essential link in the economic/technological development chain, between creativity/invention, on the one hand, and innovation/commercialization, on the other. SMEs therefore face a number of needs and challenges with respect to IP, IPR and management thereof. This will involve efficient utilization of assets, resources and capital, of which the human/intellectual aspect becomes increasingly important in the emerging global knowledge economy. SMEs in the future will need to recognize the reality and indeed necessity of economies of scale, i.e., the need to “merge” in virtual networks which whereas they might resemble larger firms, are not, i.e., are more like the jellyfish (loosely assemble, organized colony of single-cellular organisms: “SME networks”) and less like the whale (highly structured, systematized, hierarchical organism: the “corporate firm”). This will require sophisticated understanding how open innovation networks, IP management and global economic opportunities can be strategically merged to drive development

Accelerating innovation development and scaling processes for agricultural transformation

At the 5th Global Science Conference on Climate-Smart Agriculture in Bali, CCAFS, IFAD and USDA-FAS organized the Side event “Accelerating innovation development and scaling climate-smart agriculture to drive a transformation in food systems”. High-level representatives of > 20 governments, research, donor, financial and policy institutions, civil society and private sectors discussed their previously shared insights and agreed to act as an “Insight Group” for further related CCAFS research and action. This Info Note summarizes the groups’ first findings, along with a short proposal for next steps

Trends in Smart City Development

This report examines the meanings and practices associated with the term 'smart cities.' Smart city initiatives involve three components: information and communication technologies (ICTs) that generate and aggregate data; analytical tools which convert that data into usable information; and organizational structures that encourage collaboration, innovation, and the application of that information to solve public problems

Interoperability and Standards: The Way for Innovative Design in Networked Working Environments

Organised by: Cranfield UniversityIn today’s networked economy, strategic business partnerships and outsourcing has become the dominant paradigm where companies focus on core competencies and skills, as creative design, manufacturing, or selling. However, achieving seamless interoperability is an ongoing challenge these networks are facing, due to their distributed and heterogeneous nature. Part of the solution relies on adoption of standards for design and product data representation, but for sectors predominantly characterized by SMEs, such as the furniture sector, implementations need to be tailored to reduce costs. This paper recommends a set of best practices for the fast adoption of the ISO funStep standard modules and presents a framework that enables the usage of visualization data as a way to reduce costs in manufacturing and electronic catalogue design.Mori Seiki – The Machine Tool Compan

Competing by Saving Lives: How Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Companies Create Shared Value in Global Health

This report looks at how pharmaceutical and medical device companies can create shared value in global health by addressing unmet health needs in low- and middle-income countries. Companies have already begun to reap business value and are securing competitive advantages in the markets of tomorrow

Design as a driver of innovation in the East Midlands

This study reports on research and consultation with local stakeholders to discuss the role of design as part of the innovation agenda in the East Midlands. A key finding of this research iss that the East Midlands has a very strong design industry and that businesses in the region use design to a much greater extent than in most other regions

Design of an innovation platform for manufacturing SMES

This paper reports on the conception of a collaborative, internet-based innovation platform with semantic capabilities, which implements a new methodology for the adoption of a systematic innovation process in globally-acting networked SMEs. The main objective of the innovation platform is to stimulate the generation of ideas, the selection of good ideas and their ultimate implementation. The platform will support SMEs to manage and implement the complex innovation processes arisen in a networked environment, taking into account their internal and external links, by enabling an open multi-agent focused innovation system, facilitating customer, provider, supplier and employee- focused innovation. The solution is specifically focused on the needs of manufacturing SMEs and will observe product, process and management innovation. The paper presents the key elements of the innovation model and makes references to a novel approach concerning the development of a robust and flexible Central Knowledge Repository for the innovation platform

Exploring the role of servitization to overcome barriers for innovative energy efficiency technologies – the case of public LED street lighting in German municipalities

In this paper we analyse the case for public application of LED street lighting. Drawing from the energy services literature and transaction cost economics, we compare modes of lighting governance for modernisation. We argue that servitization can accelerate the commercialisation and diffusion of end-use energy demand reduction (EUED) technologies in the public sector if third party energy service companies (ESCo) overcome technological, institutional and economic barriers that accompany the introduction of such technologies resulting in transaction costs. This can only succeed with a supportive policy framework and an environment conducive towards the dissemination of specific technological and commercial knowledge required for the diffusion process