Project

Integrated Readiness Matrix

(IRM)

An innovation’s maturity is often measured through its technology, owing to the widely adopted Technology Readiness Level (TRL). But while TRL provides a critical dimension of an innovation’s stage, it speaks primarily to whether a technology is feasible and whether it can actually work. It does not capture other dimensions such as market readiness (how desirable is the technology?), commercial readiness (is there a viable path to market?) and societal readiness (what impact can it have?). Without these, a project can end up with a functional technology that serves no market need, that nobody wants to pay for, and that does nothing for society.

Multi-dimensional frameworks that attempt to capture this fuller picture do exist, but their use across the R&I ecosystem remains fragmented: different stakeholders apply different frameworks, with different dimensions and scoring logics. Supported by the Innovation and Research Caucus (IRC), this project introduces the Integrated Readiness Matrix (IRM), an integrated scale that anchors market, commercial and societal readiness around technological maturity, making the relationship between them visible and actionable.

Activities and Impact

To ground the IRM in real-world practice, we combined desk research with interviews across the R&I ecosystem, from innovation agencies and technology transfer offices to incubators, investors and innovation advisors. These conversations revealed that stakeholders are consistently assessing projects across several of these dimensions, alongside others such as team, investment, IP and governance; but unlike TRL, these assessments are not standardised or uniform, and everyone has different needs. Moreover, formal quantitative metrics are almost entirely absent, with stakeholders depending on qualitative judgement to assess readiness. These insights directly shaped how the IRM is designed and how it is intended to be used.

The IRM gives the R&I ecosystem a shared language for readiness that goes beyond technology, enabling stakeholders to spot gaps earlier, target support where it is actually needed, and track progress across projects. Building on this foundation, the next phase of the project will turn the IRM into a flexible digital tool that lets users configure and weight the dimensions to their own context. We are launching a beta testing programme and invite stakeholders across the R&I ecosystem to take part in shaping the tool.