Partnership & Collaboration
IOWL collaborates internationally to strengthen leadership reliability, integrity, judgement and consequence-awareness across whole systems - from supranational bodies and governments to employers, universities, schools and youth organisations. Our goal is simple: help capability and investment convert into trusted performance that holds under pressure, scrutiny and change.
Positive Value Leadership™ (PVL) is built on a fixed, validated set of Positive Values. Those values do not change across borders. What changes is the context in which they must be applied. For that we use the C5 Lens™.
C5 Lens™
C5 Lens™ means: Competitiveness through Country & Culturally Contextualised Calibre. The Positive Values remain consistent; the C5 Lens ensures they are implemented consistently in practice within a country’s real-world systems, constraints and cultural operating norms.
By competitiveness, we mean trusted performance: delivery reliability, workforce confidence, institutional legitimacy and outcomes that hold.
Context changes implementation - not the values.
How the C5 Lens works
Before any pilot or deployment, we map the five contextual dimensions that most commonly determine whether outcomes will be dependable.
- 1) Country system design - institutions, incentives, delivery chains and decision rights.
- 2) Culture & social norms - communication, hierarchy, trust dynamics, and conflict/face considerations.
- 3) Constraints - resources, capacity, infrastructure, affordability and access realities.
- 4) Compliance & governance - oversight, procurement, enforcement, integrity risks and accountability.
- 5) Conversion targets - what “trusted performance&drquo; means locally (delivery, productivity, retention, legitimacy, wellbeing).
The Collaboration Continuum
Our collaborations range from early-stage strategic dialogue to scaled national and international deployment. Partners may enter at any point.
- Dialogue & Strategic Alignment - shared understanding of needs, context, constraints, and outcomes.
- Evidence & Insight - research synthesis, diagnostics, stakeholder mapping, feasibility.
- Pilot & Demonstration - controlled trials, cohort deployment, measurement and learning.
- Capacity & Deployment - scaled rollout through institutions and systems; operational integration.
- Recognition & Standards - Calibre Credits™, professional standing, and trust frameworks.
- Ecosystem & Legacy - sustained collaboration, cross-border learning, and long-term governance.
Where we collaborate
We work across the full education-to-economy spectrum, spanning public, private and civil society stakeholders. The purpose is coherence: strengthening decision quality, trust, delivery reliability and performance conversion across the whole system - using PVL and the C5 Lens.
1) Supranational & multilateral organisations
Examples include OECD, UNESCO, the African Union Commission, the Arab Bureau of Education for the Gulf States, and similar regional bodies. Collaboration typically focuses on comparative insight, cross-country learning, integrity-by-design approaches, and scalable frameworks for trusted performance.
- Strategic advisory and thought partnership
- Global research alignment and evidence contributions
- International pilots, benchmarking, and shared learning exchanges
2) Governments & elected stakeholders
Collaboration with governments and elected stakeholders typically focuses on strengthening institutional trust, delivery confidence and the conversion of policy intent into outcomes - particularly under pressure, scrutiny or competing incentives.
- National leadership and integrity priorities
- Delivery reliability, governance strengthening, and trust-enhancing systems
- Public leadership calibre pathways and recognition
3) Ministries, departments & public agencies
We collaborate with ministries and departments whose mandates shape national outcomes. Common counterparts include: Ministries of Education, Economy/Industry/Trade, Labour/Employment, Public Service, and related agencies, commissions, regulators and national delivery bodies.
- Embedding calibre alongside capability and competency in system design
- Reducing performance leakage caused by mis-leadership, opacity, collusion, coercion and weak accountability
- Sector or national pilots with measurable outcomes (trust, retention, delivery, reliability)
4) Employer organisations & sector bodies
Collaboration with employer organisations, industry clusters, chambers, sector councils and major employers focuses on trusted capability: ensuring that skill and qualifications are matched by calibre in recruitment, promotion, leadership development and partnership decisions.
- Workforce calibre pathways and recognition (Calibre Credits™)
- Leadership drag diagnosis and performance reliability interventions
- Employer-linked education coherence (graduate credibility, not certificates-only)
Education collaboration: from tertiary to primary
Education partners join the continuum in ways that match their context. We support coherence across stages so that calibre is not treated as an “add-on&drquo; at the end of education, but a developmental standard built progressively and reinforced consistently - aligned through the C5 Lens.
Tertiary education: Universities
- Calibre and integrity strengthening alongside academic capability
- Institution-wide student pathways (cohort registration models where appropriate)
- Graduate credibility, employability trust, and leadership calibre development
Pioneer Partners
Within tertiary education, some institutions choose to lead nationally by becoming an IOWL Pioneer Partner - the first university (or equivalent tertiary institution) in a country to deploy Positive Value Leadership™ (PVL) at scale. Pioneer Partners help establish a new benchmark for graduate credibility: ensuring leadership calibre and integrity are developed alongside academic capability.
Pioneer Partner commitment
- Participation at scale: Commit to enabling 90% of students to complete PVL within an agreed cycle.
- System coherence: PVL positioned as a calibre standard that complements academic capability outcomes.
- Shared delivery confidence: Clear implementation planning, communications support, and participation reporting.
In recognition of this commitment, Pioneer Partners become eligible for an Institutional Participation Grant (IPG) - a bursary framework that reduces the cost of student participation while protecting the quality and integrity of PVL deployment.
Institutional Participation Grant (IPG)
- Minimum grant level: 50%+ bursary towards the cost of student participation (with context-sensitive models where appropriate).
- Purpose: Accelerate country-level calibre development by supporting institutions willing to lead at scale.
- Outcome: Higher participation, stronger graduate credibility, and improved leadership reliability and trust signals.
Example Pioneer Partner: UNILAK (Rwanda).
Higher education & vocational colleges
- Embedding calibre in practical programmes and professional formation
- Work-ready behaviours: judgement, reliability, integrity under pressure
- Employer-facing recognition to strengthen hiring confidence
Middle schools & junior schools
- Age-appropriate values-in-action development (behavioural reliability, fairness, empathy, accountability)
- Early leadership formation and consequence-awareness
- Whole-school coherence: staff modelling + pupil development
Primary schools
- Foundational character habits: honesty, humility, respect, responsibility and kindness in practice
- Shared language for behaviour that is culturally respectful and context-fit
- Positive role-modelling and consistency across school and home engagement
Youth organisations & civil society
Youth organisations are often the most practical settings for formative calibre development because values are tested in real activities, teamwork, responsibility and service. We welcome collaborations with organisations such as:
- Girl Guides / Girl Scouts and equivalent organisations
- Scouts and equivalent youth leadership programmes
- Youth parliaments, debate unions, civic clubs and service groups
- Community organisations focused on youth development, inclusion, and opportunity
How collaboration typically starts
- Initial alignment call - goals, stakeholders, constraints, and context.
- C5 Lens mapping - the five contextual dimensions that determine conversion into trusted performance.
- Collaboration design - scope, cohorts, measures, governance and communications.
- Pilot delivery - deployment with evidence capture and learning loops.
- Scale decision - refine, expand, standardise, and integrate across the system.
Whether we are collaborating with supranational bodies, governments, ministries, employers, universities or youth organisations, the aim is the same: to strengthen Calibre in practice so that capability and investment convert into outcomes that are dependable, legitimate and sustainable - using PVL with the C5 Lens.
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