- Over 150 Colombian stakeholders have helped shape the novel hub, including community leaders, engineers and investors.
- InterNodos launched in Bogotá at an interactive workshop with 60+ representatives from the country’s energy sector.
Colombia is entering a decisive phase in its energy transition. While the country has set ambitious goals for reducing emissions and diversifying its energy mix, progress has been slowed by fragmented governance, uneven regional engagement and complex social, environmental and technical interdependencies.
InterNodos is designed to respond to this complexity by facilitating cross‑sector collaboration to improve how the energy system works as a whole. The new Engineering X initiative brings together civil society, government, industry, academia and Indigenous communities to tackle systemic challenges that no single organisation can address alone
Engineering X, a partnership between the Royal Academy of Engineering and Lloyd’s Register Foundation, is funding InterNodos after spending more than a year on its design with the help of stakeholders across Colombia’s energy ecosystem, including regulators, researchers and industry partners. This period of consultation helped identify shared priorities, inform the hub’s governance model, and ensure that its design responds directly to territorial needs and opportunities to strengthen collaboration, innovation, and coordinated action across Colombia’s energy ecosystem.
Initially, InterNodos will focus on systems analysis, convening, learning and capacity‑building to enhance the impact of existing initiatives and enable more coherent, resilient decision‑making across the sector. Its day-to-day management is led by Movilizatorio, a Bogotá-based social innovation laboratory.
Dr Nick Starkey, Director of Policy and International at the Royal Academy of Engineering, said: “Colombia’s energy transition requires coordinated action, trusted relationships and long‑term thinking. Through InterNodos, Engineering X is supporting a locally led platform that strengthens collaboration across sectors and communities. By drawing on deep local expertise and global systems knowledge, the Hub will help align activity, build capacity and generate the learning needed to drive meaningful, lasting impact. The launch of InterNodos is another step in the Academy’s mission to connect global systems expertise with local knowledge to deliver lasting, practical impact.”
Juliana Uribe, CEO of Movilizatorio, said: “Colombia’s energy transition represents a strategic opportunity to strengthen the country’s long-term development. Beyond a shift in technology, it offers a practical pathway to modernise how energy is generated and consumed, improve resilience and enhance competitiveness. Advancing this transition is not simply an environmental decision; it is a pragmatic strategy to enhance energy security, generate quality employment, attract stable investment and position Colombia as a credible regional leader in sustainable growth. Realising this potential, however, requires deliberate coordination and long-term vision.
"InterNodos is a catalyst for long-term transformation, accelerating a transition that brings together economic growth, social justice and environmental sustainability in a way that is both ambitious and grounded in Colombia’s realities.”
Raúl Oliván, CEO of Hexagonal said: "At Hexagonal, we believe knowledge is the best resource for development cooperation: it doesn’t run out; the more it is shared, the more value it creates. Sustainable transformation does not come from importing models, but from strengthening locally grounded capabilities.
"Through our methodological support to InterNodos, we seek to move systems thinking into practice — embedding it in how decisions are made, how missions are shaped, and how coordination structures align incentives and action at national scale. By strengthening capabilities within Colombia’s own ecosystem, InterNodos can remain locally led while enabling structural, resilient, and inclusive change."
Dr Ruth Boumphrey, CEO of Lloyd’s Register Foundation said: “Delivering long-term positive change across complex systems is not easy. As a charitable Foundation, it is our responsibility to make sure that the work we support and champion is providing safer outcomes across the entire ecosystem, and not creating unintended consequences for other workers, the environment or local communities. By focusing on coordination, shared learning, and mission-driven innovation, locally-led initiatives like InterNodos are ensuring that engineering choices – across the life-cycle of the energy system, from construction, expansion, adaptation to decommissioning – are made democratically, equitably, strengthen local capacity, and foster tangible growth. We’re really looking forward to seeing how it develops under Juliana's leadership."
Notes for editors
- Engineering X is a growing collaboration that promotes the role of engineering in tackling safety and sustainability challenges by building global connections across sectors and disciplines. Founded by the Royal Academy of Engineering and Lloyd’s Register Foundation, we champion systems approaches and amplify unheard voices to ensure solutions are sustainable and locally appropriate. InterNodos is a project under the Safer Complex Systems programme of Engineering X. Engineering X is providing £730,500 of funding for an initial three-year period and has appointed Movilizatorio as the management team to lead day‑to‑day operations, with strategic oversight from an Opportunities Board. Additional advisory and capability‑building will be provided over the first 18 months by Hexagonal, a Spanish consultancy.
- The Royal Academy of Engineering creates and leads a community of outstanding experts and innovators to engineer better lives. As a charity and a Fellowship, it delivers public benefit from excellence in engineering and technology and convene leading businesspeople, entrepreneurs, innovators and academics from every part of the profession. As a National Academy, it provides leadership for engineering and technology, and independent, expert advice to policymakers in the UK and beyond. The Academy’s work is enabled by funding from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, corporate and university partners, charitable trusts and foundations, and individual donors. www.raeng.org.uk
- Movilizatorio is a laboratory with global reach for social participation and innovationthat moves people power to transform ideas into actions and passivity into social and environmental movements. We generate real impact by being adaptable and diverse.
- Lloyd’s Register Foundation is an independent global charity that supports research, innovation, and education to make the world a safer place. Its mission is to use the best evidence and insight to help the global community focus on tackling the world’s most pressing safety and risk challenges. For more information, please visit www.lrfoundation.org.uk