Hasat Grant Programme

01Overview

Supporting researchers and early-stage innovators to turn academic knowledge into sustainable ventures.

Harvest Grant Programme was Turkey's first thematic grant programme supporting postgraduate researchers working on sustainability-focused projects. Its first edition funded promising research, but revealed a broader challenge: funding alone was not enough to create sustained learning, collaboration, and measurable impact.

When Originnovation joined the programme's second call, I worked as Service Designer and Project Manager to redesign the end-to-end service – connecting participant experience, mentoring, programme operations, and knowledge transfer into one coherent model.

02The Challenge

Funding promising research was only the beginning. The challenge was creating the conditions for that knowledge to develop, connect, and continue beyond the grant itself.

Learning Community

How might participants evolve from individual grantees into members of a learning community?

Grant Mechanism

How can the grant mechanism integrate mentoring and evaluation tools?

Central Inquiry

How might a grant programme become a system for collective impact?

Goal – Transform Harvest from an individual funding programme into a collective, learning-based impact model.

Continuity

How can the foundation sustain this model autonomously in future cycles?

03Understanding the Ecosystem

Every stakeholder experienced the programme differently, yet every experience depended on the same operational system.

Before proposing solutions, I mapped how participants, mentors, trainers, programme coordinators, and the foundation interacted across the programme lifecycle. Stakeholder mapping and journey analysis revealed communication gaps, duplicated work, unclear responsibilities, and moments where a better operational system could improve the experience for everyone.

Foundation

Originnovation

İnci Holding

Academia

Mentors

Instructors

Participants

Foundation · İnci Vakfı, at the core

Delivery partners · Originnovation · İnci Holding

Stakeholders · mentors · participants · academia · instructors

04Design Strategy

Designing for scalability meant designing for both participants and programme operators.

Rather than adding more activities, I focused the redesign on the interactions already shaping the programme. The strategy balanced two needs: creating a meaningful participant journey while reducing the operational effort required to deliver it.

Design Thinking Process

Empathize

Define

Ideate

Prototype

Test

Strategic Moves

Standardize recurring operational processes.

Strengthen collaboration between stakeholders.

Create reusable systems instead of one-time solutions.

05Design & Implementation

The programme became a connected service rather than a collection of independent activities.

I redesigned the programme as one continuous journey across three stages: Definition, Implementation, and Harvest. Application, mentoring, learning, evaluation, progress tracking, and post-programme support were designed as connected touchpoints rather than separate activities.

Programme Architecture

01 / Definition

Application

Evaluation

Mentor Matching

Onboarding

02 / Implementation

Mentoring Sessions

Learning Webinars

Progress Tracking

Team Scorecards

Coordinator Reviews

03 / Harvest

Harvest Day

Post Support

Continuation

06What We Delivered

The redesign extended from participant journeys to the systems behind delivery.

Programme Design

Participant Journey

Learning Journey

Programme Architecture

Service Blueprint

Operational Systems

Mentor Management

Mentor Onboarding Flow

Mentor-Participant Matching

Progress Tracking Framework

Evaluation Structure

Communication Workflows

Harvest Day Operations

Facilitation & Delivery

Workshop Design

Mentor Webinars

Stakeholder Coordination

Programme Delivery Support

Social Media Content Design

07Operational Handover

The final deliverable was not another recommendation. It was the ability to run the programme without us.

To make the model transferable, I consolidated the service into an operational handbook, implementation guide, reusable templates, and process documentation. Together, these captured not only what to deliver, but how to operate, evaluate, and improve future programme cycles.

Deliverable System

Operational Handbook

Complete system model and step-by-step cohort delivery guidelines.

Cohort Blueprint

End-to-end journey maps for researchers and mentors.

Operational Playbooks

Manual guidelines for selection, matching, and Harvest Day.

Reusable Templates

Pre-formatted sheets, emails, and evaluation rubrics.

Harvest Grant Programme report and implementation guideline

Harvest Grant Programme 2023Project Report & Implementation Guideline

08Impact

A more structured programme connected funding with learning, mentoring, and continued support.

The redesign established a structured operational model that improved consistency across the participant journey – connecting funding with mentoring, learning, and continued support.

Programme Reach

36Applications received

15Finalist projects

10Awarded projects

100+Stakeholders engaged

Experience

90%Mentor satisfaction

Funding Mobilised

1M₺Total grant value

09Reflection

"Designing for the experience also means designing for the people who have to deliver it."

Harvest changed how I think about service design. A meaningful participant journey is only sustainable when the organization behind it has the clarity, tools, and confidence to reproduce it. Since this project, I have treated operational design and knowledge transfer not as the final stage of a service, but as part of the service itself.

Experience + Operations

design both sides of the service

Reusable Systems

build beyond one programme cycle

Capability Transfer

design for independent continuation