For stakeholders across governments, NGOs, the climate change community, investors and sponsors, this is a unique opportunity to engage and collaborate with scale-ups across North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Australia to deliver real impact on climate change.

This global access has been of huge value not just to the innovators but also to our policymakers. Governments wouldn’t normally have a reason to engage with such a diverse spectrum of stakeholders. Our innovative approach was of sufficient interest that viewers from 46 countries tuned in to watch the ministerial-attended presentations by our companies and guest speakers during COP26.

This collaboration between governments, academic institutions, NGOs and pioneering tech businesses is the embodiment of the COP27 Goal of Collaboration. The Global Scale-up Programme seeks to bridge the divide between environmental policy and tangible impact on the ground through technologies that help address both the effects and the causes of this climate crisis.

What is the GovTech Global Alliance and why is it ideally placed to deliver a programme of this global nature? The GovTech Global Alliance has been rebranded from the CivTech Alliance. was formed in March 2020 at CivTech Scotland’s Demo Day 4,  attended by nearly 20 countries. Since then, recognising the value of a global community whose focus was to deliver better outcomes for the citizens we serve, we have run weekly video calls sharing best practice, cross promoting ecosystems and supporting each other - or in other words, therapy sessions for those trying to change government!

The programmes involved are some of the world’s leading GovTech and CivicTech programmes, including those from the United States, Brazil, Estonia, Lithuania, Scotland and Australia to name but a few. We are helping solve problems within our regions and countries - with some considerable success stories - and that’s because we lie at the intersection of government, academia, entrepreneurs and community groups. In many cases, our programmes have streamlined procurement pathways to provide access for innovative companies who would not otherwise get a platform for their technologies.

We have all been innovating - pushing boundaries to achieve better outcomes for the citizens we serve. With all this value at a regional level, how could we leverage our track records, our know-how and our networks at a global level for the benefit of people and the planet? How could we move from a knowledge network, to a collective capability? This question sowed the seeds of this Scale-up Programme in early 2021 when we designed the programme, launched and held a series of presentations and panels at COP26 in Glasgow. We wanted to demonstrate the impact that can be achieved by pulling together global talent from governments, academics, innovators and community groups.

Who benefits from participating

For Participating Organisation/Government Programmes

For governments and NGOs, the GSUP seeks to bridge the divide between environmental policy and tangible impact on the ground. For our participating government, NGO and academic programmes, the benefits are to:

• Demonstrate the power of tangible intergovernmental collaboration

• Facilitate synergistic engagement in a collaborative network that delivers concrete change on the ground

• Deliver outstanding support for regional businesses

• Harness unique access to global innovations and participation in a unique platform

• Attract globally aspirational companies as foreign direct investment opportunities across the network.

For Policymakers

One of the best ways of improving domestic policy outcomes is to understand how other governments have achieved theirs. The GSUP enables closer collaboration at central government, agency, business and community levels and enables innovation diplomacy. This open innovation approach provides a framework for individual policymakers to open up to innovation networks they wouldn’t otherwise have access to, and work together far more closely than they have been able to previously. This will lead to the following outcomes: 

• Develop your policy horizons by learning from other countries

• Build relations with other policy makers addressing the same challenges 

• Understand what technological possibilities there are (at different stages of technological readiness levels) and what impact that might have on the policy development. 

The GSUP is ideally aimed at fast growth scale ups. We focus on this type for three reasons. Firstly, impact. In order to maximise impact, our belief is that companies with slightly more mature products which are able to be rolled out faster given the right access are more likely to achieve outcomes quicker.

Second, how do you accelerate that impact? Well this is about enabling access to governments, the public sector and procuring agencies and innovation ecosystems in multiple locations as quickly as possible. For companies who join us and collaborate with us, it is an opportunity to be in front of some of the leading innovation teams from governments around the world. This is about access to ecosystems companies wouldn’t otherwise have access to.       

Thirdly - if you are going to be introduced to ten or so governments in rapid succession, you should ideally have the capacity and capability for the follow up afterwards. GSUP 1 made over 200 introductions across 102 organisations and GSUP 2 had 100+ introductions. We understand that companies at this stage of growth need business development opportunities, not lots of workshops [we will be offering a few workshops specifically on investment, social impact and pitch training - the difference here is about offering different global perspectives on those themes]. In that sense, this is not an accelerator programme but an access programme - access to communities both private and public that companies wouldn’t necessarily normally be able to access, along with introductions to investors and global entrepreneurs. We have some great feedback about the global nature of this programme in facilitating those introductions. 

That’s not to say we will rule out teams with great ideas and earlier stage companies, but applicants should be aware of who this is oriented towards and the commitment involved to get the most out of this programme. Indeed, for GSUP2 we had a few early stage companies who massively committed and have been rewarded with growth and investment. 

No contractual payments

Unlike many of our country-specific programmes, the Global Scale-Up Programme does not include contractual payments. This is not a procurement process. All our programmes - whilst similar in many respects - operate under different legal frameworks and different contractual arrangements.                                         

In order to achieve parity across the regions, we took the decision to remove any form of payment. Interestingly, feedback from the companies both years indicated that access and exposure was of more value than payment for participation.    

The factor around GSUP not being a contracted programme of activity dictated also who the programme was aimed at. It would require companies with a certain level of resources to commit to, and gain the most from, the programme. 

Companies have been able to access funds from their regional enterprise agencies. We have issued letters confirming their participation.

We may also look for sponsorship to fund companies’ travel and accommodation to COP28. 

We will shortly publish the programme teams involved. Who are the programme teams? Check out the videos on the Meet the Teams page and you can find out more about the teams involved. These aren’t faceless programmes. You will meet many of the Alliance members who appear in the videos, and in that sense it’s giving a face to Government.

Participating in GSUP has a number of benefits for participating programmes. It is our opportunity to work together and move beyond a knowledge network to a collective capability. Feedback from the past two cycles has been:

• Pride in the ability to do what most governments find challenging - work on a practical level together.

• Build personal and professional networks through the different external stakeholders brought together from over the world. 

• Raised visibility externally through the awards, accolades and awards such as the apolitical award, and the report by DTU

• Raised visibility internally within own organisation / Ministerial letters

• Opportunity to go to COP26 and COP27 - and COP28

Due to the breadth and depth of the programmes, the first few stages of the Scale-up Programme take place at a regional level. So you’ll see we’ve split our membership into their respective regions: North America, South America, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Australia. We’ve done this for three reasons:

Firstly, ecosystem engagement. Each of our Programmes are plugged into innovation and investment networks, so it made sense to tap into those regional networks to both promote the Programme and source companies to participate.

Secondly, effort. All of our Programmes are currently running their business-as-usual programmes and this Global Scale-up Programme is on top of the already stretching workloads. As such, we wanted to spread some of the effort between the different teams.

Thirdly, it makes it easier for companies to engage on an ongoing basis with regional teams. Of course, we welcome applications from companies outside the programme team countries.