LAUSR

The importance of scaling initiatives that promote environmental protection and conservation is almost universally recognized. But how is scaling best achieved? We empirically evaluated the relationship of a list of factors that have been postulated to facilitate successful scaling to the degree of scaling success achieved in 56 case studies from a variety of sectors. We identified 23 factors that are significantly associated with successful scaling, defined as self-replication: an innovation that is congruent with local sociocultural patterns, takes advantage of existing scaled infrastructure, and facilitates a paradigm shift; adequate resources and constituencies for scaling, secured from the start, drawn from both within and outside the system; pilot sites that reflect conditions at future sites rather than ideal conditions; clear and deliberate scaling expectations and strategy; capitalization on economies of scale; a project team that has a unifying vision, includes both individuals who helped design the innovation and members of the target audience, and empowers users with the requisite skills; target audiences that take ownership of the project; the provision of long-term support systems; ongoing learning about the factors influencing scaling; direct management of relevant supply and demand streams; targeted marketing and dissemination efforts; and the evaluation of scaling success indicators. We also explored correlations between these principles, and identified a group of principles that together explain nearly 40% of the variance in success: the provision of long-term support systems (or one of its surrogates: turning users into partners, a user organization with wide reach, and the empowerment of the target audience with requisite skills); resources mobilized from within and outside the system; user organizations that have the capacity to implement the innovation; innovations that are platform solutions and that provide rapid feedback; and pilot sites that have realistic conditions relative to future sites. Our results suggest that for scaling to be successful: 1) scaling must be considered at all stages of a project; 2) the context must be managed and barriers to scaling must be identified and removed and 3) deliberate attention must be paid to scaling methods, marketing and dissemination efforts, and long-term monitoring of scaling progress.