Scouting means looking for creative indigenous ideas/innovations/traditional Knowledge.

Scouting of the innovations is the first step towards the fulfilment of the mission of NIF. The art of scouting involves the extensive fieldwork; travel in rural and urban areas, search for 'odd balls' the experimenter, local community and knowledge experts in the society. Students in summer vacation also are encouraged to scout such creative people. In order to achieve the scouting and documentation of the innovations the following activities are required:

1. To coordinate with various governmental and non-governmental agencies to mount national campaign to scout innovations with the help of grassroots level functionaries of education, agriculture, rural development, small scale industry, Panchayati Raj institutions, etc.
2. To screen, document and verify the claims about these innovations through various networks of scientific and other institutional initiatives as well as through Honey Bee collaborators, existing databases and field visits.
3. To generate mechanisms for graduated incentives for innovators and involve them in scouting process itself.
4. To provide assistance in forging decentralized networks of inventors/knowledge experts and strengthen the Honey Bee Network.
5. To obtain Prior Informed Consent (PIC) of the providers of knowledge.
6. To share the innovations permitted in public domain with the knowledge providers through Honey Bee newsletter and other media to enrich the repertoire of the local communities and informal knowledge experts and to support shodh yatras in different parts of the country.