Knowledge, frameworks, and strategies for systemic transformation and societal impact

We help organizations and foundations understand the status quo, gain new knowledge, build scenarios, and translate evidence into strategies and frameworks for systemic change and lasting impact.

About

We work at the intersection of research, policy, and practice.

The name Atelos comes from telos, the Greek word for “purpose” or “ultimate end.” Understanding that purpose is where every project begins.

Across decades of projects with foundations, research institutions, public bodies, and private organizations, we have developed deep expertise that combines analytical depth with a pragmatic sense of how decisions are made and implemented.

We focus on the conditions that make impact possible: how evidence is produced and used, how institutions collaborate, how incentives align or conflict, and how ideas are implemented. We work across disciplines and sectors, linking perspectives that are often disconnected: science and policy, strategy and analytics, economy and society.

Services

Where analytics meets strategy

Analyses and Insights

Relevant information is the foundation for meaningful change. We provide this knowledge by drawing on scientific insights and conducting desk research, field research, and analyses. Our analyses combine quantitative and qualitative approaches, mapping publication and funding landscapes, exploring stakeholder relationships, assessing policy effects, and observing practices on the ground to understand what works and what does not, and identify factors that enable or hinder progress.

We do

Mapping research, innovation, and contexts
Evaluation of programs and funding instruments
Research and policy analyses
Understanding organizational and stakeholder dynamics
Exploring emerging trends and future scenarios
Translating findings into insight for strategy and decision-making

Impact Strategy and Transformation

Impact starts with clarity of purpose and direction.
We help organizations define the change they seek to create and the pathways to achieve it.
This includes aligning goals across stakeholders, balancing ambition with feasibility, and embedding impact into everyday decisions.

We do

Impact Frameworks

Measuring and managing impact is essential for accountability and learning. Impact frameworks give structure to how organizations think about and achieve change. We help align goals across actors, balance ambition with feasibility, identify relevant indicators, and embed impact into everyday decisions. Our focus lies on building practical, meaningful systems that allow organizations to understand, learn, adapt, and demonstrate their contribution to change.

We do

Theory of change and logic models
Design of impact and evaluation frameworks
Link outcomes, indicators, and data practices
Combine quantitative and qualitative evidence
Evaluation design and review processes
Measuring Evaluation and Learning (MEL)
Support for internal learning and reporting

Stakeholder Engagement and Communication

Complex change requires collective effort. We design and facilitate processes that bring research, policy, and practice into dialogue and increase the reach of organizations’ impact. We help organizations engage partners, stakeholders, and communities to build trust, alignment, and shared ownership. Our work connects stakeholder-relevant communication with strategy to connect knowledge with decision-making and reach.

We do

Stakeholder and partner engagement strategies
Facilitation of dialogues, workshops, and processes
Communication strategies linked to impact goals
Narrative development and knowledge sharing
Participatory and co-creation methods

Systemic challenges that shape our future

We work across sectors and disciplines to build pathways toward resilience, sustainability, and new forms of value creation.

European competitiveness

Europe’s competitiveness depends on how well it turns knowledge into broadly shared value.

While on the one hand, the fundamentals exist (world-class research, deep industrial capabilities, and open markets), there are, on the other hand, persistent gaps in productivity growth, innovation diffusion, and investment in intangibles (e.g., data, software, skills, design). These gaps make it harder to scale new technologies and to translate research into firms, jobs, and exports. Fragmentation across markets, finance, and regulation also slows business formation and the reallocation of resources to the most productive firms.

Strengthening Europe’s position, therefore, means improving the entire pathway from research to market: funding and incentives for excellent science, effective university-industry collaboration, strong knowledge transfer, and entrepreneurship that can scale across the single market. It also means linking competitiveness with social cohesion to avoid a concentration of gains in a few regions or groups. Many of the bottlenecks we face today sit at interfaces (standards, IP, procurement, skills), rather than single organizations. Addressing these bottlenecks requires coordinated action by funders, universities, firms, and public authorities.

For that, we work on strengthening the links between research, innovation, and society by supporting initiatives that bridge sectors, align incentives, create enabling frameworks, and foster the foundations of Europe’s innovation ecosystem.

We work on

Green transition

Europe’s climate targets are clear: at least -55% net emissions by 2030 and climate-neutrality by 2050. However, it’s a long way to get there.

Whether and how fast we can progress depends on removing practical barriers within sectors and along value chains. In construction, for example, most emissions are embedded in materials; shifting to circular and lower-impact materials requires regulations that allow their adoption, new design rules, reliable secondary material flows, and procurement that values lifetime performance. Across industries, firms face adoption hurdles, including capital to invest, skills, data, and gaps between policies and practices (rules exist on paper but misalign with permitting, standards, or incentives on the ground). To reach the target demands collaboration across policy, research, and practice.

We help identify barriers to change, connect actors across systems, and design practical pathways toward circularity, low-carbon innovation, and resilient value chains.

We work on

Barriers to green adoption
Circularity and green materials in construction
Regulation and implementation practices
Future studies and transition roadmaps
Cross-sector alignment and engagement

New forms of value creation

Much of the business infrastructure still assumes a world of unlimited resources and detached externalities. That world is no longer viable. We have surpassed multiple planetary boundaries, placing Earth systems under strain. At the same time, inequality is rising, and public demand is growing for a fairer distribution of wealth and opportunities. Yet, traditional models and measurement systems are often ill-suited to this “new” reality. They focus on short-term financial returns while overlooking interdependencies and an organization’s broader effects: how it uses natural capital, influences social systems, or shapes ecosystems. To remain relevant and resilient, organizations must integrate impact (ecological, social, and economic) into their core strategies and develop value capture mechanisms that reward positive contributions. This means creating models where doing good is not just a cost or add-on, but part of how value is realized and shared. It also means moving the discussion from growth to prosperity. Achieving this shift in a credible and sustainable way requires rethinking how ecosystems operate: how partners collaborate, how data and risk are shared, how returns are allocated, and how impact is measured. We work with organizations and companies to imagine, test, and implement these new models of value creation, connecting purpose with performance and turning impact into a competitive strength.

We work on

Industries

We work horizontally, not vertically

Creating systemic change and societal impact requires thinking across disciplines, sectors, and value chains. That is why we work horizontally, not vertically. We do not focus on a particular industry.

That said, we have in-depth expertise in several areas where these transitions are most visible and urgent, including life sciences, research funding, philanthropy and impact investment, entrepreneurship and education, and the built environment.

If you work in another field but face similar systemic questions, we are open to dialogue. Many of the insights, methods, and frameworks we develop are transferable. What matters is not the industry label, but the mechanisms that enable change and impact.

Impact philosophy

Impact is not a number or a claim, but a way of thinking about contribution and responsibility. What changes, and for whom?

Impact is often the result of relationships, exchange, and collaboration between people, institutions, and systems. For example, when research informs practice, when policies create the context for experimentation, and when organizations work with other private or public sector actors to achieve something they would not have been able to do alone.

Measuring impact is inseparable from understanding it. Counting outcomes is not enough; what matters is the logic behind them: the activities, pathways, assumptions, and interdependencies that explain how impact is realized.

Impact has a purpose. Impact is central to prosperity. Impact is not neutral. It depends as much on how we act (the integrity of methods, partnerships, and processes) as on what we achieve.

Clients

Who we work with

Get in touch

Have any questions? We are always open to talk about your organization, new projects, challenges, and how we can help you.