Case study · Peru · ProInnóvate
From capability to connected innovation ecosystems
Measuring the ripple effect of innovation capability across Peru’s academia, government and industry, years after programme delivery.
What lasts after a capacity-building programme ends?
Oxentia partnered with ProInnóvate, Peru’s National Programme for Innovation and Productive Development, to widen innovation opportunity beyond Lima and strengthen innovation-management capability across academia, government and industry, building a network of professionals able to support regional development and economic growth.
Several years after delivery, we assessed the long-term impact of the resulting programmes. Here is what we found.
“The programme enabled us to secure support from university authorities to transfer technologies and carry out industrial pilot projects. Discussions are also underway with the regional government to run pilot projects based on our models.”
Programme participant, Peru
How do you translate investment in people into stronger innovation systems?
For governments, development banks and ecosystem partners, the challenge is not simply to train more people. The challenge is to create national innovation capacity that reaches beyond the original participants, reducing regional disconnects, strengthening institutions and enabling collaboration across sectors.
These requirements were central to Oxentia’s work with ProInnóvate. ProInnóvate sought to widen innovation opportunity beyond Lima, strengthen innovation-management capability across academia, government and industry, and build a network of professionals able to support regional development and economic growth.
Ultimately, the challenge centred around lasting value: could programmes generate impact that continued after delivery, encouraging institutional change, new relationships and wider innovation opportunities?
“The programme allowed me to examine international incubation models, which inspired me to delve deeper into Peruvian regulations and policies to develop an incubation model for generating spin-offs at public universities.”
Programme participant, Peru
Turning learning into practical action
Oxentia and its partners designed the Innovation and Technology Transfer Programme (ITTP) and the Programme in Innovation and Technology Leadership (PITL) as large-scale, long-term interventions for professionals across Peru’s innovation ecosystem, with a particular focus on Peru’s sustainability and industrial priorities, building capability in sustainability and circular economy while supporting participants to develop cleantech solutions to key challenges facing Peruvian industry.
The programmes supported 250 participants. ITTP engaged 120 participants over 12 months, while PITL supported 130 participants over 14 months. Each programme delivered 120 hours of structured learning, alongside recruitment and selection, team or project activity, mentoring, networking, final cohort events and reporting.
Rather than treating training as an end in itself, the programmes combined practical learning with opportunities for participants to test ideas, exchange experience and build relationships beyond their own organisations. They were designed around three connected ambitions:
Develop people
Equip innovation professionals with the knowledge, confidence and tools to apply new approaches in their work.
Strengthen institutions
Help participants share learning, introduce initiatives and influence organisational practice.
Connect the ecosystem
Create relationships across sectors and regions that can lead to collaboration, investment and new opportunities.
This design created a pathway from participant learning to organisational action and, ultimately, a more connected innovation ecosystem.
“Now, my team has a better understanding of intellectual property search processes when it comes to identifying new patentable subjects. Furthermore, we have been able to coordinate initiatives with the Vice-Chancellor for Research to facilitate the transfer of technologies developed in the laboratory.”
Programme participant, Peru
Establishing a pathway from people to systems
We assessed the impact of the ITTP and PITL programmes several years after initial delivery to understand the long-term benefits. We discovered a progression: participants applying new skills, organisations benefiting from new capacity and activity, and relationships growing between people and institutions, supporting a more connected innovation ecosystem.
The headline picture
The programmes created a foundation for sustained action, combining high levels of continued learning use with evidence of organisational change, network growth and access to opportunity.
Developing people
Participants have continued to draw on the skills, tools and confidence developed through the programmes.
Strengthening institutions
Individual development becoming organisational capability, through new projects, processes and strategic activity.
Connecting the ecosystem
Relationships across regions and sectors that enable collaboration and access to funding.
Creating capability that continues to grow
If you are looking to build innovation capacity that helps people develop practical capability, drives institutional change and strengthens ecosystems, Oxentia can help your investment generate returns long after a programme itself ends.
Speak to our team