Guidance

Evaluation Accelerator Fund

The Evaluation Accelerator Fund (EAF) supports evaluation across government to transform our understanding of the impact of activity in priority policy areas.

From:
Evaluation Task Force
Published
31 January 2022
Last updated
25 March 2024 — See all updates

Documents

EAF Bid Selection Process

HTML

EAF Phase 1 Selected Projects

ODT, 20.9 KB

This file is in an OpenDocument format

EAF Phase 2 Selected Projects

ODT, 17.9 KB

This file is in an OpenDocument format

EAF Phase 3 Selected Projects

MS Word Document, 10.2 KB

This file may not be suitable for users of assistive technology.

Request an accessible format.
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need a version of this document in a more accessible format, please email accessible.formats@cabinetoffice.gov.uk. Please tell us what format you need. It will help us if you say what assistive technology you use.

Details

Phase 3 projects launching April 2024

The fund has a total value of £15 million, which was allocated through three rounds of funding. In Phase 3, £1 million has been allocated to help boost the government’s understanding of delivering effective policy interventions in youth crime, net zero, well-being for higher education students and civil service recruitment.

Details of funding

The Evaluation Accelerator Fund provides a total of £15 million of funding across the 2022/23, 2023/24, and 2024/25 financial years to improve our understanding of “what works”.

The key aims of the fund are to:

  • accelerate evaluation activity and the creation of actionable evidence in HMG priority areas to inform decision-making at the next spending review
  • tackle evidence gaps in HMG priority areas by rapidly building the evidence base where departments and What Works Centres are not currently undertaking activity
  • provide robust evidence of financial or efficiency savings from new policies and interventions, or innovative approaches to service delivery

The Evaluation Task Force and the Cabinet Office announced the first wave of successful projects on Tuesday, 2 August 2022. The 16 selected programmes will receive a combined £12.2 million to deliver high quality evaluations in key policy areas, which supports a key commitment of the Government reform agenda to deliver better for citizens. A further four projects were selected for funding in wave two of the EAF, with successful bids announced on 6th March 2023 by Minister Alex Burghart at the Creating Better Evidence in Government event.

EAF supported projects are led by a range of government departments and What Works Centres. They will help fill evidence gaps across high-priority areas including crime and justice, education, social care, and health.

Details about selected projects, including the cost of each bid, matched funding contributions, and intended outputs are available in the linked documents above.

Further updates on the funded projects will be made available on this page.

Please direct any queries in the meantime to our dedicated mailbox eaf@cabinetoffice.gov.uk.

Published 31 January 2022
Last updated 25 March 2024 + show all updates

  1. We removed information on applying for Phase 3 funding as the deadline is over.

  2. Updating that the applications are now closed

  3. The deadline for EAF phase 3 has been extended to the 18th August 2023, 6pm.

  4. Evaluation Accelerator Fund Phase 2 selected projects have been added to the page. Phase 3 funding application is now open.

  5. Information about applying for EAF Phase 2 funding has been added.

  6. All the partners for the "Healthy and sustainable diets programme" have been listed

  7. Updated with information on the successful bids receiving funding from the Evaluation Accelerator Fund.

  8. First published.