Guidance

Evaluation Accelerator Fund Phase 5 – GENERAL Competition – Guidance

Updated 29 May 2026

1. Background information and aims

The Evaluation Task Force is pleased to invite proposals and expressions of interest (EOIs) for a fifth phase of the Evaluation Accelerator Fund (EAF). The fifth phase of EAF has an overall value of up to £3.5m for FY26-27. This is split into two distinct strands:

• A minimum of £1 million available for projects designed to improve the evidence base around Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG). 
• A maximum of £2.5 million available for projects related to artificial intelligence, local government and other government priorities. 

This document provides guidance for the £2.5m of EAF funding available for wider government priorities. There is separate guidance available for the £1m portion of this fund available VAWG work.

The final amount of funding available will be confirmed as part of the Cabinet Office’s ongoing business planning process. The fund will be used to make grant awards.

2. Eligibility 

There are three eligibility criteria.

a. Organisation status: We are open to proposals from:

• Central government (e.g. UK Government departments, arms length bodies, and non-departmental public bodies)
• Local government (e.g. Local authorities, regional authorities, MCAs, etc.) 
• What Works Centres (WWCs)
• Academic institutions such as universities (subject to them having charitable status in line with the definition of the Charities Act 2011)
• Charities or organisations whose activities are charitable, benevolent or philanthropic in nature (e.g. non-profits, community interest companies)

b. Priority areas: We are seeking to fund proposals that relate to the following areas: 

1. Technology

Proposals that aim to improve the ability of the public sector to use or generate robust evidence about Artificial Intelligence and digital innovation, including evaluation of AI and digital policies/programmes. 

2. Local government 

Proposals that aim to improve the ability of local government, including Mayoral Strategic Authorities, to use or generate robust evidence and evaluation.

3. Other government priorities

We are also open to receiving proposals that aim to improve the evidence-base in relation to other government priorities, including:  

• Kickstart economic growth
• Build an NHS fit for the future
• Safer streets
• Break down the barriers to opportunity
• Make Britain a clean energy superpower

c. Benefits to England: Proposals from organisations that are not part of central or local government (e.g. most WWCs, all universities, charities or other organisations) must directly or indirectly benefit England in whole or part. Your proposal will meet this criteria if and only if a majority of participants in your proposed activity’s sample are based in England.

3. Criteria for proposals

Funding is available for projects that may start as early as July 2026 and must conclude by March 2027. All projects, with only a handful of exceptions, will be expected to produce findings that are shareable with the ETF and government partners by March 2027. It is acceptable if publication of findings follows soon after March 2027.

We are particularly interested in funding the following types of proposals, which will be favourably scored:

• Proposals to work with local government to build a stronger evidence base and/or evidence and evaluation capability to support public sector decisions.
• Retrospective or long-term follow-up evaluation (e.g. quasi-experimental evaluations)
• Experimental or quasi-experimental evaluation
• Feasibility studies to inform future robust impact evaluations
• Evidence reviews (systematic, scoping, rapid) within the priority areas outlined in section 2b
• Development of outcomes frameworks; 
• An assessment of the value for money of the programme/intervention
• Development of data linking infrastructure and related sharing agreements to support future robust impact evaluations
• Research about the factors driving implementation of research findings and how to address these to promote use of evidence

In general, we are open to proposals to scope, test or deliver impact evaluations, and we have a preference for experimental or quasi-experimental methods. Given the short funding window, we are also open to bids that pave the way for later evaluative work, in line with the examples listed above. 

We will consider funding proposals for longer-term pieces of work that do not produce findings by March 2027 as long as there is confirmed matched funding that can fund proposed activities beyond FY26-27.These proposals must demonstrate evidence of this matched funding commitment.

We will also consider proposals that will accelerate or unlock robust evaluations in the future years. These proposals must demonstrate clear pathways to future evaluation activities.

We will also favourably score proposals that: 

• include an assessment of the value for money of the programme/intervention
• evaluate delivery of frontline services
• have an endorsement or letter of support from local partners or frontline decision makers
• offer matched funding or allocate existing FTE to delivery of the work (matched funding can include financial support or FTEs to manage programmes of work)

Proposals must clearly demonstrate that there is a credible and timely route for collecting or accessing data. Proposals that provide insufficient details about their data requirements will not be funded.

4. Delivery approach 

Organisations can choose to manage the project in-house and/or commission to an external partner. Organisations will be responsible for commercial arrangements and commissioning external suppliers. Funding may also be used to pay for internal staff time or fixed-term contracts subject to approval from their relevant finance team.

5. How to bid

Proposals must be submitted to to eaf@cabinetoffice.gov.uk by Sunday 28th June (6pm BST). Your submission must consist of a proposal template (Word document) and financial case template (Excel document). 

Please also include any relevant endorsements or letters of support from local partners or frontline decision makers – these are optional but welcome.

6. Assessment criteria

Proposals will be double-reviewed by the ETF. We will share details of recommended awards with senior HM Treasury and Cabinet Office officials before putting our recommendations to a suitable Cabinet Office minister for approval.

Scoring criteria for proposals is as follows:

Section	Description	Weight
Strategic case	Boxes 1A-1D	40%
Delivery approach and methodology	Boxes 2A-2F	40%
Financial case	Boxes 3A-3G	20%

7. Planned timelines

Date (2026)	Activity
w/c 1st June w/c 8th June	Drop-in information sessions open to prospective bidders. You may register for these on Eventbrite.
28th June	Proposals due by 6pm BST
mid-July	Funding decisions communicated, process to agree grant agreements/MOUs commences

8. Project monitoring 

• We require, at a minimum, quarterly financial and programme reporting
• We will aim for this to be light touch where possible, and proportionate to the value/risk of funded projects
• ETF should be invited to any programme board meetings where applicable

9. Transparency

• There is a default expectation that evaluation reports supported by this funding will be published.
• Government departments, ALBs, NDPBs or WWCs should register their evaluation plans and findings on the Evaluation Registry.
• Research papers supported by this funding must be published in an ungated, publicly accessible manner (e.g. preprints or working papers). We are unfortunately not able to fund open access publication fees charged by academic journals, given these costs would in most cases arise after FY26-27. 

10. Future engagement

You are welcome to contact eaf@cabinetoffice.gov.uk with any questions you have.

11. FAQs

What do you consider to be ‘evaluation’?

Research that attempts to understand whether something works or not and generates insight that can directly inform decision-making.

Is there a minimum or maximum amount of funding we can apply for?

No. However, you can see examples of the funding levels made to past projects here: Evaluation Accelerator Fund (Phase 4): Project summaries 

What support is available to help develop proposals?

We will hold a handful of virtual information sessions which you can sign up for on Eventbrite. We can be contacted with questions at eaf@cabinetoffice.gov.uk. We will try our best to respond to all messages promptly.

What kinds of things will you fund?

We will fund resources to deliver programmes of work, which can include funding for commissioned research and evaluation activity, or staff time to manage these programmes of activity (subject to approval from your relevant finance team).

Can we use the funding to pay for delivery of the intervention as well as the evaluation?

No, EAF funding can only be used for the delivery of research and evaluation activities (including activities to build evaluation capacity or improve evaluation infrastructure or use of evidence). However, funding could be used for a project manager who will oversee both delivery and evaluation.

How much detail are you expecting in the proposals?

We have provided some guidance about the word limit for each section of the proposal template. We will expect to see more detail for larger, higher cost proposals.

Is there any flexibility on the length of projects/completion date of March 2026? 

Findings should be shareable with the ETF by March 2027. It is acceptable if publication of findings follows soon after March 2027. (The exception to this is proposals for longer-term pieces of work with confirmed matched funding that will fund evaluation activities beyond FY25-26. These proposals must demonstrate evidence of matched funding.)

The finance section requires a budget and supporting narrative – which is scored?

We assess both the budget and supporting narrative and give proposals one score for this section – essentially, whether the proposal represents good value for money.

Should I include VAT in my financial costings?

Yes, your funding request must be inclusive of any VAT that your organisation is unable to recover from HMRC. You should exclude VAT your organisation is able to recover from HMRC.

I am based at a UK university. How does this funding compare to a typical UKRI or ESRC grant?

You are welcome to bid for full-buyouts (100% economic cost). 

In terms of overheads, you can bid for funding to cover costs related to your project that are associated with a programme management office (e.g. an office that solely or mostly procures and manages research grants and awards).

However, funding cannot be used to cover ‘indirect supporting activities,’ i.e. those which support your project but are not undertaken exclusively for it, such as payroll, HR departments, etc. These are out of scope. 

This is in line with HM Treasury’s Consolidated Budget Guidance FY26-27 (PDF, 1,628KB) (specifically section “Guidance on Research and Development under ESA 10”). This guidance outlines costs associated with delivering research and evaluation activity that are in scope for this funding.

Do you have similar funding opportunities?

No, but we encourage you to review our partners’ ESRC’s ‘responsive mode: secondary data analysis round two’ funding call. This is currently open and has no closing date.

12. ONS Secure Research Service

The ONS Secure Research Service houses government administrative datasets that can be used to evaluate the impact of policies and programmes. You can review the current data catalogue here: Discover secure research data. If your proposal includes datasets accessed through the Secure Research Service, please be mindful of the turnaround times to request data.

13. Administrative Data Research UK: Using public sector data to evaluate public policy

ADR UK provides secure access to a growing collection of linked, de-identified administrative data which provide a rich resource for evaluation research, as it contains longitudinal information from large groups of people about their outcomes and experiences in different parts of their lives. This can enable research that evaluates how a policy or intervention in one area (such as education) might impact outcomes in another area (such as involvement with the criminal justice system) and provide a mechanism to track outcomes over the long term.  More information about how to access these data can be found here: How can I access data for research? - ADR UK

Administrative data is information created when people interact with public services, such as schools, the NHS, the courts or the benefits system, and are collated by government. This data is not created for research, but as a by-product of government services.  

This wealth of data has the potential to create important knowledge, providing powerful insights into our society and pointing to areas where change is needed. Linking this data across different areas of public life allows us to see patterns which might otherwise be missed. Watch a video to find out more.

Browse the ADR UK Data Catalogue for a sense of the administrative data available for evaluation research. This provides key information on the linked datasets available for research across the UK.

In particular, our ADR UK Flagship datasets are some of our most important linked data assets and all have publicly available documentation and other resources to support researchers.  Additional support for researchers looking to use administrative data can also be found at ADR UK’s Learning Hub. 

Some examples of evaluation using administrative data include:

Evaluating the impact of alcohol minimum unit pricing on deaths and hospitalisations in Scotland

Researchers used administrative data to evaluate a policy designed to reduce deaths attributable to alcohol, providing important insights into its effectiveness for policymakers.  

The impact and prioritisation of careers guidance in Wales 

This project examined the effectiveness of careers guidance in supporting pupils to participate in post compulsory education and training.