Scaling innovation takes more than ideas: it takes orchestration

Without orchestration, even the best-intentioned partnerships stall. A local energy coalition struggles because municipalities, grid operators, and residents can’t align on priorities. A mobility pilot loses momentum when public and private partners disagree over data access. A circular chemistry initiative runs parallel experiments that never connect, wasting time, money, and goodwill. Misunderstandings grow, decisions get stuck, resources are wasted, and people walk away frustrated.

With orchestration, these same partnerships can thrive. This blog explores seven roles that innovation orchestrators can take to make that difference.

The challenge

Do you ever struggle to scale innovation? You’re not alone. Whether it’s a breakthrough in sustainable energy, a new approach to healthcare, or a digital solution for urban mobility, many promising innovations never make it past the pilot phase. Why? Because scaling innovation is hard. Having a great idea is not enough. You also need to aligning people, priorities, and processes across complex systems. That almost always means working in a cross-sector partnership. However various factors can stall progress in partnerships, think of misaligned goals and siloed expertise or political pressures and unclear mandates.

Orchestration can help here. At TNO, we believe that innovation doesn’t scale itself. It needs process owners who can bring together the right partners, align incentives, and guide the group through the messy middle between idea and impact.

A growing body of international case studies described in academic research across sectors (see Table below), shows that successful cross-sector partnerships often depend on the behind-the-scenes work of innovation orchestrators. Our recent review of this literature identified seven distinct roles that orchestrators take on as partnerships evolve from early-stage ideas to implemented solutions. These roles are not always performed by a single person or organization. In some cases, one orchestrator may shift roles over time, in others different partners or external facilitators take on different roles depending on the phase of the collaboration or the needs of the group.

What is an innovation orchestrator?

At TNO, we use the term innovation orchestrator to describe the actor that helps bring parties together, align them around a shared problem, and support the partnership through the twists and turns of real innovation work. Orchestrators don’t have all the answers, but they know how to get the right people in the room, help them talk, and guide the group from confusion to clarity, and from ideas to action.

Here is a closer look at the seven roles that innovation orchestrators often play to help partnerships succeed:

1. The convenor: creating space to collaborate

Most partnerships begin with someone asking: “Who else should be at the table?” A convenor’s job is to bring people together across sectors, often before anyone knows exactly what the problem is. This role is all about trust, neutrality, and framing the shared purpose. Without it, partnerships risk becoming exclusive or stuck in narrow perspectives.

2. The scoping lead: defining the challenge

Once people are at the table, the next challenge is agreeing on what the actual problem is. Scoping leaders help partners frame the issue, prioritize what matters, and make sure everyone’s speaking the same language. This avoids confusion later on when everyone starts working toward “solutions” that don’t match.

3. The mediator: keeping the partnership together

Cross-sector partnerships are full of tension: profit vs. purpose, speed vs. process, boldness vs. caution. Mediators help manage that friction. They make sure people feel heard, reduce misunderstanding, and help negotiate common ground without watering everything down.

4. The learning catalyst: turning discussion into shared knowledge

Cross-sector partnerships often bring together people with very different types of expertise: engineers, economists, community organizers, and more. Learning catalysts ensure that partners aren’t just talking past each other. They make sure new knowledge is captured, shared, and used to move the group forward. This also includes building the skills partners need to innovate together.

5. The integrator: connecting the dots

In long-term partnerships, things can easily become fragmented. Pilots happen in one corner, strategy lives in another, and communications somewhere else. The integrator steps in to keep everything connected, linking actions to strategy, ensuring people aren’t duplicating work, and helping align different streams of activity. Think of this person as the strategic glue of the partnership.

6. The project orchestrator: driving value implementation

Ideas are easy but implementation is hard. Orchestrators make sure that partnerships actually deliver on their goals. Project orchestrators focus on implementation. They don’t just coordinate tasks, when done well, orchestration ensures the right people are doing the right things at the right time.

7. The policy advocate: changing the rules of the game

Some big societal challenges can’t be solved without changing the larger system. Policy advocates help bridge the work of the partnership with decision-makers. They translate practice into policy insight and advocate for change when the system needs to evolve.

TNO Vector

Orchestration is not theory for us at TNO Vector, it’s daily practice. We convene, mediate, and integrate across various domains to keep partnerships moving forward. Because scaling innovation takes more than ideas, it takes orchestration.

Curious what orchestration could mean for your partnership? Let’s explore it together.