In late October, we joined the global research and innovation community in Istanbul for the WAITRO Summit 2026, held from 26 to 28 October at Istanbul Technical University (ITU). The three-day Summit brought together research and technology organisations, universities, industry, policymakers and innovation partners from around the world, with a particular focus on climate solutions and on moving promising research and technologies towards practical application and impact.
The focus was closely connected to our work at Seneca. Moving from innovation to implementation requires more than a strong technology or idea. It requires projects to be developed, partnerships to be built, risks to be understood and appropriate financing to be structured.
Closing the Implementation Gap
Seneca’s Jean-Marc Champagne participated in the Summit’s opening plenary, From Ideas to Impact – Leading the Path of Implementation, moderated by Nik Sazali bin Nik Hussin of SIRIM Berhad and a WAITRO Board Member, alongside Dr. Zilong He of UNIDO; Prof. Brando Okolo of the African Union Development Agency; and Prof. Fazilet Vardar, of USIMP and Izmir University of Economics. The panel explored why promising ideas and technologies so often struggle to move from research and pilots into real-world implementation.
Jean-Marc highlighted the implementation gap between promising ideas and lasting impact. Research organisations are highly effective at generating knowledge, technologies and other outputs, but achieving genuine impact requires those ideas to be adopted, scaled and sustained. That means greater attention to the less visible work of building partnerships, developing projects and creating credible pathways to implementation.
Nature Finance provides a clear example. Discussions can become focused on financial instruments when the underlying constraint is often a shortage of well-developed, investable and implementable projects. Starting with the project and the intended environmental outcome allows the appropriate financing to follow, rather than designing projects around a particular financial instrument. As Jean-Marc highlighted in his closing contribution, implementation needs to be rewarded as much as innovation.
From Innovation to Implementation
That same challenge is at the heart of our growing partnership with the World Association of Industrial and Technological Research Organizations (WAITRO). On the final day of the Summit, Jean-Marc joined Dominik Reinertz, Managing Director of WAITRO, to introduce the Project Development and Advancement Program (PDAP), which Seneca and WAITRO are developing together.
PDAP is being designed to help promising research and technologies navigate the critical development stage between innovation and implementation. Together with WAITRO, we are building a structured approach that combines its global network of research and technology organisations with our experience in project development, financial structuring and capital mobilisation, helping promising innovations progress towards viable projects and real-world deployment.
The Summit reinforced a challenge we see repeatedly in our work: there is no shortage of innovation and no shortage of capital seeking credible opportunities. What is often missing is the development capacity that connects the two. Our partnership with WAITRO and the work underway on PDAP are intended to help build that bridge.
