Evaluation of EPSRC’s Prosperity Partnerships programme

Publication date: 9 June 2023 | Report language: EN

Technopolis UK delivered a process and impact evaluation of the EPSRC Prosperity Partnerships programme. The Prosperity Partnerships programme is EPSRC’s flagship mechanism for supporting strategic business-led research partnerships between leading UK based businesses and their academic partners. The programme aims to enable businesses and academic groups to strengthen and deepen existing research relationships into long-lasting partnerships and accelerate the generation of economic benefits from fundamental research.
Impact and Process Evaluations of the EPSRC Prosperity Partnerships programme were conducted between September 2022 and February 2023. The impact evaluation aimed to determine the extent to which the Prosperity Partnerships programme has achieved its objectives since its inception in 2017 and to identify and quantify the outcomes and impacts generated. The process evaluation assessed programme implementation and the extent to which the programme design supported and enabled the delivery of the intended outcomes and impact.
The evaluation found that the Prosperity Partnerships programme is successfully delivering against its objectives. It was not clear at the outset if the design of the programme would be attractive to the academic and industrial communities (industry in particular), but it proved to be able to attract and support a wide range of Partnerships, and Partnerships are delivering outputs and early outcomes entirely in line with the theory of change and programme objectives. However, the longer-term effects will not be observed for a number of years.

The report is also available on the EPSRC website, here.