IDIA’s Global Innovation Advisors

Global Innovation Advisors are practitioners, innovators, researchers, and systems leaders who are actively shaping how innovation is used to address complex development challenges. Membership reflects both the quality of their work and a shared commitment to more equitable, locally-grounded innovation practice.

Specifically in their role within IDIA, GIAs collaborate with other actors in the IDIA ecosystem in a range of ways that are meaningful to them and relevant to IDIA’s evolving priorities, including: 

• providing lived experience perspectives on complex development challenges; 

• contributing contextual knowledge around innovation demand, gaps challenges and priorities within specific sectors, populations, countries and regions; 

• leading targeted pieces of research / community consultation; 

• co-creating tools and resources to enable more equitable innovation partnerships; 

• supporting the design and execution of online and in-person events; and 

• mobilising their expertise and networks to provide technical input, management or governance across IDIA activities aligned with their interests and experience.

In return, IDIA is able to offer those in our GIA community a range of potential benefits to help advance their own agendas, including:

(a) globally amplifying their expertise, insights and approaches with wider audiences, showcasing their work to reach new audiences and communities of practice within and beyond IDIA; 

(b) access to paid, consultancy-style advisory, research and leadership opportunities that emerge through the IDIA ecosystem, offered to GIA members on a competitive or direct-sourcing basis, according to fit; 

(c) the opportunity to access and build relationships with a diverse global community of renowned practitioners, innovators, policymakers, ecosystem builders, and funders working to advance collective impact on shared challenges;

(d) the opportunity to find, connect, learn from and/or collaborate with other GIA experts working on issues aligned with their interest; and

(e) key roles in shaping learning agendas, informing global development innovation strategic priorities, and bringing technical expertise to collective impact initiatives across the IDIA ecosystem.

Interested in becoming an IDIA Global Innovation Advisor?

IDIA welcomes candidates who are interested in becoming part of the Global Innovation Advisors (GIAs) network and collaborating with IDIA members to advance new solutions and strengthen innovation ecosystems. However, the value and productivity of this network depends on a continuous curation process to ensure that this community reflects top quality expertise and experience.

At present, there are three pathways to potential membership of IDIA’s GIA community: 

• Individuals who are invited to join an IDIA event or community meeting as a Guest Speaker automatically become a member of the GIA community, and are invited to complete a short enrolment process to formalise their membership. 

• The IDIA Secretariat may invite open applications for GIA expertise based around specific needs or priorities within IDIA strategy. These targeted recruitment windows will be advertised through the IDIA profile on Linkedin and other relevant social media platforms and ecosystem channels.

• Interested applicants are also welcome to apply proactively at any time by completing the simple GIA Expression of Interest Form below. Rolling applications are reviewed quarterly by the IDIA Secretariat and assessed in terms of potential relevance against expertise priorities and gaps within the GIA community.

About the GIA Role