Implementation research for scale - reflections from the Impact at Scale Labs

• In Event: Learning in groups, learning in loops using data for development: Implementation research grant makers

Proposal

Global Schools Forum’s Impact at Scale Labs programme combines grants with technical support for education innovations. The technical support includes implementation research, partnerships and financial sustainability for scale. These areas are integrated in the Labs’ adaptation of the Desirability-Feasibility-Viability framework (Global Schools Forum, 2023), which specifically considers how evidence can increase an organization’s readiness to scale their impact. We also carry out evidence user research with implementing organizations, funders and external experts; and review scaling literature to understand opportunities to leverage the GSF community and support organizations with specific challenges to scale innovations. Beginning in 2021, our approach has now been applied to support 14 innovations (10 with an FLN focus) across Sub-Saharan Africa and India, with rich findings across contexts.

The Labs have received very positive feedback from the first and second cohorts on the quality and usefulness of the capability building support, especially the implementation research and financial sustainability support. Our key lessons to date are:
• to prepare for scaling, implementation research needs to include a focus on providing evidence in real-time on different cost and financial models (lobal Schools Forum, n.d-a) to enable organizations to choose the best models
• A/B testing (Global Schools Forum, n.d-b) can provide early and useful information about potential impact, avoiding costly mistakes further down the line
• Embedding a culture of iteration around evidence for scaling requires an early focus on diagnosing organizational challenges alongside intensive 1:1 support with a focus on long-term capability building
• We need to continue to streamline and codify i) our application, selection, and due diligence process, ii) the quality and quantum of our technical support (scope and sequencing, asynchronous/synchronous; one-to-one and tailored versus larger group), and iii) our mechanisms for sharing knowledge with the wider GSF community.

We measure the impact of the Impact at Scale Labs in a range of ways: scale, learning outcome impact, and organizational capability building. We also measure the extent to which the wider GSF community can learn from the experience and replicate findings. We are looking forward to reflecting with other funds on the kinds of implementation research that has particularly enabled scale in other contexts, how we can keep grant-making lean, and how we can encourage peer-learning across funds and grantees.

Authors

• Aashti Zaidi, Global Schools Forum

• Alina Lipcan