Scaling Sustainability: Advancing Concepts, Opportunities, and Challenges for Increasing Impact

Date and time:  Jun 2, 2026 | 13:00 - 14:00 EST

Register here. 

About the webinar : The Science of Scaling Webinars under CGIAR are a quarterly learning platform that brings together researchers, practitioners, and partners to exchange practical insights on how innovations move from pilot initiatives to impact at scale. Organised by CGIAR’s Scaling for Impact Program and Wageningen University, the series is designed to be highly interactive and grounded in real-world experience.

Many research and sustainability organisations seek to increase their impact, expand their reach, and scale successful initiatives, policies, and programmes. Yet many efforts fail to achieve scale or fall short of their intended outcomes  often resulting in missed opportunities and limited long-term impact. These challenges can partly be attributed to a disconnect between how projects are planned and how scaling unfolds in practice.

This session brings together two scientists working at the forefront of scaling research and practice. Across both presentations, it will emphasise the importance of synthesising lessons from scientific research and implementation practice, and highlight how transdisciplinary collaboration and knowledge co-production can strengthen conceptual guidance and methodological tools for scalability assessment and design ultimately contributing to greater and more sustainable impact of innovation initiatives.

Key themes this session will explore:

• Scaling up, scaling out, scaling deep, adoption, diffusion, and stabilisation
• Scale readiness, downscaling, re-scaling, and acceleration pathways
• Systems-based approaches to sustainability transitions
• Practical barriers and opportunities in agricultural mechanisation scalinG
• Transdisciplinary collaboration and knowledge co-production for scalability assessment

Speakers

Blessing Mhlanga is a Cropping Systems Agronomist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). He will share practical experiences applying Scaling Readiness within mechanisation projects in Southern Africa, highlighting key barriers, opportunities, and lessons for scaling agricultural innovations in complex development settings.

Stefan Partelow is Professor of Environmental Governance at the University of Bonn. Stefan will use ocean and coastal systems as a case study to explore and synthesise the key concepts and theories shaping scaling discourse and practice. His presentation will examine approaches such as scaling up, scaling out, scaling deep, diffusion of innovation, Scale Readiness, re-scaling, and systems-based sustainability transitions, offering a conceptual overview for researchers and practitioners working across development contexts.

The conversation will be chaired by Esther Kihoro, a Post-Doctoral Fellow for the Science and Practice of Innovation and Scaling. She is based at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and is a member of the CGIAR Scaling for Impact program.