The SHAPE Readiness Level Framework is specifically designed for social sciences, humanities, and arts research and the increasingly established commercialisation landscape, also known as SHAPE (Social sciences, humanities and arts for people and the economy). This tailored tool supports innovators, impact and commercialisation professionals as well as investors and funders in determining and managing the potential and impact-readiness of SHAPE-based innovative ideas as they develop. Published under the creative commons license, this new approach addresses the specificities of SHAPE-based research as Technology Readiness Level (TRL) frameworks have been proven instrumental yet primarily restricted to the field of STEM disciplines.
Description
The SHAPE Readiness Level Framework has been developed by Oxentia, an innovation management consultancy based in Oxford. It is tailored to commercialisation and impact creation of SHAPE-based research and aimed at innovators, impact and commercialisation professionals, investors and funders.
The SHAPE Readiness Level Framework spans 10 readiness levels from research over development and deployment to scale. For each category, clear definitions of the different levels are given, as well as actions and milestones that are needed for advancing to the next readiness level (exit criteria). The framework takes into considerations the readiness across some key complementary categories, chosen as they address the specificities and challenges posed by SHAPE research and ventures creation. Specifically, these categories are:
- Concept readiness: how to develop a market-ready innovation from SHAPE research outputs;
- Intellectual property rights and strategy: how to protect soft IP (particularly not-patentable IP), focusing on know-how, branding, trademark and copyright;
- Business model and value proposition: how to develop a sustainable BM and VP for non-tech innovations, which prioritise not-for profit or social enterprises model;
- Team profile: how to build and retain an impact-oriented team, avoiding the founders as a single point of failure;
- Stakeholder mapping: how to navigate a highly-complex stakeholders landscape, where customers tend to not overlap with beneficiaries;
- Impact and sustainability: how to clearly articulate, monitor and communicate to the different stakeholders the impact the innovation will achieve.
Furthermore, while the traditional 1-9 Levels and Research/Development/Deployment TRL structure was maintained, an additional level (Scale – 10) was added to assess the readiness for scaling and internationalising. This reflected the need for some SHAPE innovations to deliver impact at scale and internationalising as the only effective way to become a sustainable venture.
The Framework is designed to help screen opportunities and evaluate whether an innovation should be prioritised, receive support and funding. It can also guide the planning of a development strategy, determining what is needed for the innovation to increase its readiness. Finally, the framework enables assessing risk and opportunities as to whether an innovation is suitable for investment according to its risk profile.
This framework has been created with the intention that it will improve as we use it. As such it is published under the creative commons license. We also welcome feedback and collaborative input.
Achievements & learning
The Oxentia proprietary SHAPE Readiness Level Framework has been successfully applied in SHAPE-focused pre-acceleration and acceleration initiatives across the UK and internationally. It has delivered strong results in supporting idea owners, mentors, and trainers during the early stages of developing and validating innovative ideas.
In 2024/2025, the framework was used in a shared-TTO pilot, where it helped triage and select the most promising SHAPE projects for the acceleration phase. It has also been included in an online self-help resource bank, created for benefit of all seven participating university institutions. To this end, the tool has been validated and refined in collaboration with the other project delivery partners, including an investor network and another innovation management consultancy.
In ad-hoc acceleration projects delivered for UK universities, the framework has served as an effective internal mentoring tool. It has helped to identify key gaps and set acceleration priorities, and support communication between academic teams and TTOs. Additionally, it has been used in training sessions to guide TTO staff and academic innovators through the key stages and challenges of the venture creation journey.
Some key lessons learnt in the development and implementation of the framework are:
- Comprehensiveness: unlike many other readiness frameworks, the SHAPE Readiness Levels tool takes a holistic approach, assessing innovation readiness beyond just technological or product development aspects;
- Implementability: the framework’s structured design, featuring clearly defined stages and ‘exit criteria’, ensures it is practical and adaptable across innovation ecosystems at varying levels of maturity.
- Rigour and objectivity: with its defined, objective criteria, the framework supports transparent communication with researchers about the market and investment readiness of their innovation, reducing the risk of subjective interpretation or misuse.
See also: SHAPE Readiness Level Framework