Impact & Evaluation

To maximise benefits and scale innovations, local and regional authorities, technology and infrastructure providers must be able to quantify the impacts new solutions or services will have, and enable a culture of testing what works, where and when. In our Impact & Evaluation practice, we look beyond the promises of shiny tech and novel solutions and take a robust, evidence-based and open approach to understanding impact and change across the project lifecycle, through design, delivery and post-implementation.

This involves developing the case for investment, producing Theory of Change and logic models, project appraisals, developing evaluation frameworks and undertaking assessments with a range of qualitative and quantitative techniques. We also consider a breadth of impacts that matter for people and place, such as wellbeing and environmental benefits.

Whether you’re a transport authority that needs to understand the impact self-driving vehicles could have on a city, a fleet operator looking to electrify your fleet, or an authority looking at supporting local decarbonisation, we can help you to forecast the impact your investment will have and how projects achieve benefits for people and places - and meet your objectives.

We work at every step of the journey, partnering with clients to help them identify and assess the impact of change, exploring both the intended and unintended consequences. This is also a chance for us to revisit and refine project design and delivery. Engagement is a critical part of what we offer, from interviewing beneficiaries, gathering edge cases and surveying public attitudes to co-developing a Theory of Change with our clients. We also believe in the benefit of partnering with sector experts, academic and research organisations. We help clients understand what works, where and why, and accelerate the transformation to more sustainable and efficient places to live, work and visit.

• Impact assessment: understanding and evidencing the wider impacts of innovation: how a new mobility service might influence longer-term planning, or how different people use smart devices, and what this means for a resilient neighbourhood. We consider economic, social and environmental impacts, for individuals, communities and places.

• Business case development: developing robust investment cases for tech and place-based solutions, based on a systems and whole-place view, with consideration of both soft and hard benefits. We also look to draw out the opportunities to build on existing use cases.

• Evaluation framework design: designing the methodology to evaluate and monitor interventions. This includes defining indicators and targets, understanding the counterfactuals, Theory of Change approaches, and quasi-impact assessments, including assessing the cost-effectiveness and value for money of options. 

• Post-implementation analysis: comprehensive evaluation to help you identify the successes and learnings from interventions, including whether expected outcomes have been achieved, which benefits have been realised (and where), whether projects have been delivered effectively, and where improvements can be made. 

• Course correction and pilot follow-ons: developing strategies to evolve and adjust interventions which have not delivered the intended outcomes - and ensuring pilots can be understood and refined for wider roll-out or for different contexts.

  These services include both quantitative and qualitative research, and we take an open approach to new techniques and measures that suit each intervention.