Beyond TRL 9: From Demonstration to Scaled Adoption

Part 3 of the Bridge Connect Series “Technology Readiness Levels — From Lab to Leadership”

Executive Summary

Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) help organisations measure technological maturity. But what happens once a technology reaches TRL 9 — proven in operation and technically complete?

In reality, readiness doesn’t end with deployment. The challenges of integration, scaling, commercialisation and resilience often determine whether innovation translates into real-world value.

This final article in Bridge Connect’s TRL series explores what lies beyond TRL 9: how leaders ensure sustainable adoption, policy alignment, and strategic resilience — turning technological maturity into long-term advantage.

1. TRL 9 Is Not the Finish Line

When NASA devised the TRL framework, TRL 9 meant that a system was flight-proven. For telecoms, defence, energy and infrastructure organisations, that equates to a technology functioning in its intended environment — but not necessarily thriving in the market or across entire networks.

Post-TRL 9 challenges include:

• Integration risk: connecting new systems into legacy environments.

• Commercial risk: scaling production or services while maintaining cost efficiency.

• Regulatory risk: ensuring ongoing compliance as rules evolve.

• Operational risk: sustaining performance under real conditions and user demand.

In other words, TRL 9 is the end of development, but the beginning of systemic adoption.

Bridge Connect’s experience across telecoms and critical communications shows that the transition from “working prototype” to “operational ecosystem” is often more complex than the R&D journey itself.

2. The Missing Frameworks Beyond TRL

To capture post-deployment maturity, complementary models have emerged:

Framework	Focus	Description
IRL – Integration Readiness Level	Interoperability	Measures how well new technologies interface with existing systems and standards.
MRL – Manufacturing Readiness Level	Production scalability	Gauges whether manufacturing and supply chains can reliably deliver at scale.
CRL – Commercial Readiness Level	Market maturity	Evaluates business models, customer adoption and financial sustainability.
SRL – System Readiness Level	Holistic integration	Assesses overall system performance when multiple TRL-validated technologies are combined.

These frameworks fill the gaps that TRL alone cannot address.For boardrooms, combining TRL with CRL or IRL gives a 360° view of readiness — from technical maturity to business viability.

3. The Adoption Gap: From Proven to Pervasive

The greatest post-TRL 9 challenge is scale.

In telecoms, a system proven in one operator’s testbed may fail when deployed nationally due to differences in spectrum, terrain, or legacy infrastructure.In defence, an AI-enabled decision-support tool might perform well in exercises but encounter ethical and legal barriers in live operations.In energy, a hydrogen pilot plant may demonstrate feasibility but stumble on supply chain fragility.

Bridge Connect refers to this as the adoption gap — the space between proven performance and sustained ecosystem delivery.Bridging this gap requires governance frameworks that extend beyond R&D, integrating technology management into policy, procurement, and operational resilience.

4. Governance Beyond Deployment

Executives often relax oversight after TRL 9 is achieved, assuming the technology is now “safe.” In reality, governance intensity should increase.Key elements include:

1. Lifecycle Assurance: Continuous monitoring of reliability, cybersecurity, and user satisfaction.

2. Change Management: Procedures for updates, patches, and configuration drift.

3. Regulatory Watch: Tracking emerging standards and compliance obligations.

4. Sustainability Metrics: Measuring energy efficiency, lifecycle emissions, and circularity.

Bridge Connect frequently assists clients in extending their TRL governance frameworks into long-term operational assurance regimes — integrating technology, financial, and policy oversight.

5. Case Study — FRMCS Beyond TRL 9

When FRMCS achieves operational status, the technical challenges may be over, but the governance challenges will only begin:

• Harmonising upgrades across hundreds of networks.

• Maintaining interoperability between national implementations.

• Ensuring cyber resilience under NIS2 and rail-sector safety standards.

• Managing supplier dependencies across a 20-year lifecycle.

The lesson for boards: TRL 9 readiness must be coupled with continuous integration and compliance strategies, not treated as a final milestone.

6. Case Study — Non-Terrestrial Networks and 6G Integration

As satellite-to-device technologies mature, the first TRL 9 deployments (e.g., SpaceX, Lynk, AST SpaceMobile) still face challenges at the IRL and CRL levels:

• Can they integrate seamlessly into terrestrial 5G cores?

• Are the billing, roaming and regulatory frameworks ready?

• Do they have sustainable economics once subsidies end?

This is why 6G roadmaps increasingly reference System Readiness — a recognition that the value of proven technologies depends on their integration into larger architectures and business models.

7. Building Resilience Into Post-TRL 9 Systems

Resilience is the new differentiator.A TRL 9 technology that fails under stress is not “ready” in any meaningful sense.Resilient adoption requires:

• Redundancy: fallback systems for continuity under failure.

• Cyberhardening: protection of integrated systems as new attack surfaces emerge.

• Operational feedback loops: continuous learning from live incidents.

• Human factors: training and decision support that adapt to evolving use cases.

Bridge Connect’s advisory work increasingly focuses on how resilience metrics can be built into post-TRL 9 governance — turning one-off success into long-term reliability.

8. Financing the Post-TRL 9 Phase

The financial profile of a technology changes dramatically once operational.

• CapEx gives way to OpEx. Maintenance, upgrades, and cybersecurity costs dominate.

• Revenue models shift. Subscription, service, and data-driven models replace initial project funding.

• Investors diversify. Infrastructure funds and insurers replace venture capital.

Boards should treat the transition beyond TRL 9 as a refinancing event.Bridge Connect often helps clients structure Stage-2 capital frameworks that match this shift — balancing ownership, service-level agreements, and risk transfer to sustain operations.

9. Policy and Standardisation Alignment

A technology that outpaces policy risks stranded investment.Post-TRL 9 planning therefore requires proactive engagement with standardisation bodies (ETSI, 3GPP, IEC, ISO) and regulators.This is particularly true in domains such as:

• Quantum communications (pending cryptographic standards).

• GNSS resilience (eLORAN integration into PNT policy).

• AI in critical infrastructure (governance and explainability).

Bridge Connect supports clients in embedding regulatory foresight into post-TRL strategy — ensuring that technologies evolve with, not against, their policy environments.

10. Commercial Readiness Levels (CRL): The Final Bridge

CRL frameworks, first used in the energy sector, evaluate how ready a technology is for commercial uptake.They assess factors such as market demand, regulatory acceptance, customer adoption, and investor confidence.

CRL	Description	Example in Telecoms
1–2	Market potential identified	Early pilot funding interest
3–5	Market commitment developing	Pre-commercial trials, initial partnerships
6–8	Commercial rollout scaling	Cross-operator adoption, standards maturity
9	Market fully commercial	Widespread procurement, stable ROI

By combining TRL + CRL, executives can gauge both technical readiness and commercial viability — critical for timing entry into regulated or infrastructure markets.

11. Lessons for Boards and Investors

Bridge Connect summarises the post-TRL 9 governance challenge into four board-level questions:

1. Integration: Have we validated interoperability with legacy and partner systems?

2. Resilience: What assurance exists that the technology can withstand real-world stressors?

3. Commercialisation: Are business models, customer readiness and supply chains in place?

4. Governance: Who owns lifecycle assurance once development teams stand down?

Answering these questions early prevents the “handover cliff” — the point where R&D success collapses into operational chaos.

12. The Bridge Connect Approach

Bridge Connect helps organisations institutionalise readiness management across technical, financial, and policy domains. Our approach integrates:

• TRL, IRL and CRL assessment models.

• Independent readiness audits for investors and boards.

• Training for executives on readiness governance and investment pacing.

• Strategic mapping between readiness stages, funding, and regulation.

By embedding readiness thinking into board governance, organisations maintain visibility long after the engineers have declared “mission accomplished.”

Conclusion

Technology Readiness Levels take innovation from idea to operation. But sustainable success begins after TRL 9 — when governance, resilience and commercial adoption define real-world value.

Leaders who extend readiness thinking beyond the lab future-proof their organisations against the next wave of disruption — turning readiness into resilience, and resilience into advantage.

TRL 9 is not the end of innovation - it’s the start of responsibility. True readiness means integration, resilience, and adoption at scale.