Evaluation Accelerator Fund
Source: gov.uk (2025-03-07)

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

Phase 4 applications open March 2025

The Evaluation Task Force (ETF) is pleased to announce Phase 4 of its Evaluation Accelerator Fund (EAF). The EAF is a competitive grant fund and supports research and evaluation projects that:
- create actionable evidence in HM Government priority areas that informs public spending or policy decisions;
- tackle evidence gaps in HM Government priority areas; or
- provide robust evidence of financial or efficiency savings from new policies, interventions, or innovative approaches to service delivery
Phase 4 has up to £3.5 million available in the 2025/26 financial year. The total amount available will be confirmed as part of the Cabinet Office’s business planning process. The fund will be used to make grant awards via open competition.

Funding is available for one-year projects which start in May 2025 and conclude by March 2026. 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 2026.

Eligibility

There are three eligibility criteria.

a. Organisation status

Proposals must be from:
- Central government (e.g. UK Government departments, arms length bodies, and non-departmental public bodies)
- What Works Centres (WWCs)
- Charities or organisations whose activities are charitable, benevolent or philanthropic in nature (e.g. universities, non-profits, community interest companies)
b. Priority area

We are open to proposals that relate to at least one of the following HM Government priorities:

Missions
- Kickstart economic growth
- Build an NHS fit for the future
- Safer streets
- Break down the barriers to opportunity
- Make Britain a clean energy superpower
Technology – using technology in the public sector in order to digitise public service delivery, enhance productivity and improve outcomes.

Priority areas for Public Sector Reform (as outlined in Autumn Budget 2024 (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/autumn-budget-2024/autumn-budget-2024-html))
- Health
- Local government and devolution
- Children’s social care
- SEND
- Homelessness
- Police
- Prisons
- Asylum
- Defence
- Transport
- Civil Service
c. Benefits to England

Proposals from organisations that are not part of central government must directly or indirectly benefit England in whole or part. Your proposal will meet this criteria if a majority of participants in your proposed activity’s sample are based in England.

Please refer to the EAF Phase 4 Guidance for additional information.

To learn more

The ETF will hold drop-in information sessions for prospective applicants. These sessions will give attendees the opportunity to ask questions about the fund and their project’s potential eligibility. The EAF information sessions will take place on:
- 14 March, 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
- 24 March 10:00 - 11:00 am
- 9 April 11:30 am - 12:30 pm
Book your place on an information session via Eventbrite (https://www.eventbrite.com/e/evaluation-accelerator-fund-phase-4-drop-in-information-session-tickets-1234918407199?aff=oddtdtcreator).

How to bid

Proposals must be submitted to to xxx@xxx.xx (mailto:xxx@xxx.xx) by 25 April (6:00 pm). Your submission must consist of a proposal template (Word document) and financial case template (Excel document). These templates are provided in the documents list on this webpage.

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

Please refer to the EAF Phase 4 Guidance for additional information.

Previous phases of the Evaluation Accelerator Fund

The Evaluation Accelerator Fund provided 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 (https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/evaluation-task-force) and the Cabinet Office (https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/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 ten projects were selected for funding across phases two and three of the EAF.

EAF-supported projects are led by a range of government departments and What Works Centres (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/what-works-network). 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.