ESMC 2024 - Aligning practical solutions with system dynamics
Creators: name: van der Weerdt, Caroline
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2025
Subjects: subject: Systemic innovation
subject: Innovation management

description: Countless innovation projects, such as those supported by the Horizon Europe’s programme, aim to accelerate societal transitions for society’s wellbeing. Many solutions are brought to a degree of maturity in such projects, yet the challenge of how to scale these often persists (e.g. Schut et al. 2020; Van der Weerdt et al. 2017). We hypothesise that scaling is hindered because of a lack of a more unified approach to both the dynamics in a system, and practical solutions for change.

The eminent ‘theory of change’ is a method to identify relevant interventions for social change, by delineating a causal pathway from long-term goals to concrete outcomes (e.g. Clarke & Taplin, 2012; Mayne, 2017). The theory of change gives a helpful structure to plan for social change; the question is whether it reflects the often chaotic world of innovation, where long-term goals, short-term objectives, and interventions that are supposed to strengthen each other, are being developed in splendid parallel realms. The H2020 ZeroW project (https://www.zerow-project.eu , 2022-2025) found a way to pragmatically bridge these realms.

Scaling innovative sustainable data-driven solutions to reduce food loss and waste (FLW), such as an intelligent label indicating the quality of the contents of a package, are the main focus of the ZeroW project. It is designed to bring about systemic change; the challenge is thus to ensure the solutions meet the actual systemic issues. However, innovative solutions do not always have a clear societal issue as a starting point; sometimes it is the potential that is recognised in a chance discovery, such as a new type of sensor that can better predict food quality. Moreover, even though the projected solutions in ZeroW are still being developed, their future commercial viability is already a priority. This can cause a (perceived) mismatch between identified systemic needs and solution objectives.

A pragmatic method to bridge the systemic dynamics with the solutions in progress, and to ensure their systemic fit, was found in the ‘Golden Circles’ of Sinek (2009). These circles complement the theory of change but they reflect the reality of those working on the solutions (the ‘what’, or 'output and 'outcome' in the theory of change) and help them to align their efforts with the systemic purpose (the ‘why’) and the distinguishing ways this is to be achieved (the ‘how’, or 'input' and 'activities' in the theory of change).

In dialogues between actors involved in both systemic analyses and the solutions, it was found that the ‘what’ was clearly outlined, whereas the ‘why’ (why such a solution would unequivocally support in bringing about the needed systemic changes to reduce FLW) still demanded explication. This exercise made implicit assumptions, e.g. about what specific behaviour is required from whom, or what exact information needs to be shared, far more explicit.

In sum, systemic innovation and the development of innovative solutions, albeit both in need of each other, tend to take place in different realms, which can limit the potential of these solutions to scale and actually lead to the envisioned systemic change. But these realms can be bridged, and both perspectives can be demystified, by setting up dialogues between solution builders and systemic change agents to delineate pragmatically the what, how, and mostly, the why.