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30-May-2025
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💡 Last month, Mission Innovation’s Technical Advisory Group (TAG) presented the key takeaways from their second annual review of the MI Missions’ activities at the 2025 Annual Gathering in Seoul. The main findings from this review, as drafted by the TAG, can be found below. 🌐 

The global clean energy space is changing rapidly. In these uncertain times with tough economic conditions, it is important to keep on-track with research and innovation (R&I) otherwise progress can stall. It has taken time for the Missions to become established and now they are going from strength to strength; we need to keep the momentum going to see real and lasting impact from Mission Innovation in the clean energy sector.  

The Missions have taken the TAG feedback from their first review in 2023 and used it to their advantage, by making strong and steady improvements across all areas.   

Missions are adding real value to their slice of the clean energy sector by listening and responding to stakeholders needs, avoiding duplicative efforts, acting as knowledge brokers, and establishing purposeful collaborations to direct innovation. Establishing these collaborations has been key to achieving impact and progress towards their goals, particularly with the private sector to deploy technologies via demonstration projects, with the research community to action R&I and with the Global South to broaden the reach of MI and provide support to their energy transitions.  

Mission have had great success in producing impactful outputs. Highlights include: 

However, it has been difficult for Missions to evaluate their impact. The TAG recommends doing this in a systematic way and to try new ideas, such as surveying stakeholders and seeking examples of third party mentions.  

Communications were identified as an issue by the TAG in the 2023 review and it is excellent to see they have been ramped up across all Missions. LinkedIn has proven to be a key platform for advertising and hosting webinars, sharing information on Mission activities and highlighting successes. In fact, the NIM was awarded a $175,000 USD LinkedIn grant to use on boosting their posts, which is a great achievement. Awards and prizes are being used by NIM and CDRM to highlight successes, stimulate R&D and promote their Missions. The TAG recommends also using additional platforms for communication activities and trying to tailor these for different audiences, which can broaden the reach and impact of MI.  

Missions need to continue strengthening their collaborations with each other. Some of these collaborations are already taking place, with for example the regular collaboration between UTM & GFPM including a joint side event held at COP29, and inter-Mission collaboration on risk management. A lack of risk management was identified by the TAG as a key issue in 2023 and we are pleased to see significant progress in addressing this. 

Missions need to collaborate with partners in a structured manner to ensure continued engagement and alignment with their Action Plans and Goals. The CHM has been redefining its goal and working with the MI Secretariat to develop new Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). The IBM and NIM should consider re-examining their KPIs to ensure they are aligned with Mission activities and progress. Similarly, it is suggested that the ZESM should focus more attention on fuels, which supports the Mission’s goal. The TAG recommends that Missions should reflect on their “theory of change.” That is, thinking about how the activities they undertake and the outputs they create will lead to outcomes that will contribute their goal.   

Resourcing challenges, which can hamper progress, were flagged by the TAG as a key risk for some Missions. All Missions have ambitious Action Plans and Goals and for these to be met, members and co-leads need to provide sufficient support. The full TAG 2024 Overarching Report includes some suggestions of actions Missions and MI member countries could take to increase their pool of resources. Nevertheless, it should be emphasised that all Missions have been making impressive progress with the resources they have available including leveraging their partners, collaborators and each other.  

Mission Directors are the lynchpin that holds their Missions together, which can lead to problems if the director needs to leave or step back from their Mission. In the 2023 TAG Overarching Report, we recommended that Mission teams consider appointing Deputy Directors or Mission Coordinators to take some pressure off the Directors. CDRM, UTM and NIM have had success with coordinators and we encourage the other Missions to consider establishing this role. 

 

Summary of recommendations: 

  1. MI Members should ensure that they continue their support to Missions going forward. Missions are now in the critical delivery phase, and they need to know they can rely on continued people resourcing and financial support from members and co-leads.  
  1. Missions need to evaluate their impact in a systematic way and to try new ideas, such as surveying stakeholders or seeking examples of third party mentions that refer to the specific role the Mission played. The TAG recommends that MI undertakes a benchmarking exercise to calculate the resource to impact ratio of each Mission. This would then highlight what can be achieved with different levels of resourcing. 
  1. Missions should use a variety of platforms for communication activities and to try to tailor their communications for different audiences.  As this year marks the 10-year anniversary of MI, this is an opportunity for an enhanced communication campaign of what MI and the Missions have delivered to date. 
  1. Missions should deepen their collaborations. Building upon excellent progress, inter-Mission collaborations should be strengthened. It is recommended that the Missions form stronger ties with their CEM counterparts, academic institutions and industry stakeholders to enhance their effectiveness. 
  1. MI Members and Missions should continue to strategically plan for Mission resourcing (team size and leadership). (i) Missions can look at other ways to obtain additional resources, such as closer collaboration with public institutes, secondments, student internships and volunteers. And (ii) as was recommended in 2023, Missions should have a Deputy Director or Mission Coordinator to provide back-up for the Director if not yet addressed. 

 

The Mission teams have been working hard to ensure their Missions are making progress towards their goals. They are constantly looking for opportunities to engage with external stakeholders, establish meaningful collaborations and sharing knowledge to support innovation, and producing outputs which they are communicating to achieve impact. Missions have been courageous in making significant changes when things have not been working. For example, the CHM changed its goal based on the recommendation by their TAG panel in 2023. This demonstrates the commitment of all Missions to the success of clean energy innovation and MI.  

 

Acknowledgement:  

The 2024 TAG review process was conducted by the following TAG members:  

Dr Jenny Hayward (TAG Chair, Australia), Dr Michio Kondo (TAG Vice-chair, Japan), Dr Julia Reinaud (Breakthrough Energy), Ms Cynthia Handler (Canada), Dr Kong Li/Dr Huan Wang (China), Ms Birgitte Keulen (European Investment Bank), Dr Vangelis Tzimas (European Commission), Dr Dagmar Sommer (Germany), Ms Araceli Fernandez Pales (IEA), Professor Shireesh Kedare (India), Mr Francisco Boshell / Ms Norela Constantinescu (IRENA), Mr Colin Ward (KAPSARC), Mr Bert Stuij (Netherlands),  Mr Per Arne Karlsen (Norway), Dr Turki Al-Aqeel, PhD, MBA (Saudi Arabia), Dr Thabo Hlalele (South Africa), Dr Margarita de Gregorio (Spain), Professor Mercedes Maroto Valer (UK), and Ms Anna J Siefken (USA). 

The following MI Secretariat members coordinated the process: 

Rebecca Vignols-Clewlow and Kotaro NAKAMURA