Evaluation of DSIT grant funding for Tech Nation April 2020 to March 2023
An independent evaluation of funding to Tech Nation between financial years 2020 to 2021 and 2022 to 2023, which was aimed at supporting the growth of UK tech startups and scaleups.
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This research was carried out by Frontier Economics for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), previously the Department for Digital, Media, Culture and Sport (DCMS). DSIT assesses the impact of grant funding to Tech Nation between financial years 2020 to 2021 and 2022 to 2023, and captures lessons learned from Tech Nation’s programmes.
For the past decade, the government has funded dedicated support to accelerate the growth of tech startups and scaleups. The government grant to Tech Nation was an important element of support to tech startups and scaleups across the UK.
The evaluation found evidence that most of Tech Nation’s activities generated benefits, however some were established too recently for impacts to be captured in this evaluation.
Tech Nation’s growth programmes had a particularly positive impact. These alone generated impacts (£44 million) that exceed the total cost of the grant in scope of the evaluation period. However, it was not possible to establish the overall value for money of all grant-funded activities due to data limitations.