Our network

Orchestrating an internationally distributed collaborative network.

The AIR Centre is committed to spread ideas that work on a transformative scale in the Atlantic region.
It builds on individual capacities of organizations to advance selected scientific and technological domains and their constellations of actors towards shared targets. In order to achieve such commitments, the AIR Centre recruits and orchestrates a complex network of organizations and individuals to deliver change and social impact through concrete actions.

The AIR Centre has a unique multidimensional mission-oriented, demand-driven, problem-solving approach:

› Integrates various sciences

space, ocean, earth, climate, energy, and data sciences

› Includes different levels of stakeholders

government, academia, industry, and civil society

› Encompasses diverse geographies, cultures and technology readiness levels

American, African and European countries

› Fully accommodates both local priorities and global challenges.

WITHIN THIS CONTEXT, HOW CAN THE AIR CENTRE ACHIEVE ITS AMBITIOUS RESULTS WITH A LEAN, AGILE AND ADAPTIVE ORGANIZATION?

HOW CAN THIS ORGANIZATION RAPIDLY INCREASE ITS IMPACT TO CONTRIBUTE TO SOLVING PROBLEMS LOCAL COMMUNITIES CARE ABOUT?

HOW CAN THE AIR CENTRE STRUCTURE ITSELF TO TRULY ACHIEVE ITS GOALS?

The answer is by fully embracing a networking mindset for achieving efficiency and effectiveness. Decision making is decentralized, ownership and expertise is distributed across multiple actors and effectiveness is not only linked to concrete outputs but also linked to intangible outputs, such as trust, shared values, vision and purpose.

The AIR Centre operations are primarily focused on designing the network, recruiting and orchestrating stakeholders, and coordinating inputs and outputs. Simultaneously, balancing resilience and adaptive capacity for rapid growth and diffusion are key to our activities. Our distributed approach for knowledge generation in the Atlantic Ocean follows the approach for innovation networks in the ocean economy, mentioned in the “Rethinking Innovation for a Sustainable Ocean Economy” report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Network structure

The AIR Centre is a “small-world” network, where nodes are not necessarily neighbouring each other, but the neighbours of any given node. Consequently, most nodes can be reached from every other node with a small number of hops or steps.
The centrality of the AIR Centre and the collaborative mindset are our main competitive advantages.

The AIR Centre networks

comprises the following levels.