Specifically, we evaluated the outcomes and impacts of the Newton Fund – a seven-year investment by the UK Government as part of its strategy to carve out a higher-profile role within the global Science, Research, Technology, and Innovation landscape.
The Newton Fund was managed by the UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT).
We conducted this evaluation in consortium with RAND Europe, Athena Infonomics, Plan Eval and the Institute of Development Studies (IDS).
About the Newton Fund
Launched in 2014, The Newton Fund worked in 18 partner countries across three pillars of activities:
- Research: research collaborations and platforms
- People: developing talent
- Translation: R&I networks and infrastructure.
Over the years, the Fund’s management underwent considerable changes in response to periodic reviews by the Independent Commission for Aid Impact.
Our role
Our evaluation sought to provide insights for DSIT’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) Analysis and Policy teams. It also harboured great potential to promote learning with evaluation managers across ODA-spending departments, the UK Collaborative on Development Research, and more widely.
The evaluation had three core objectives:
- Provide evidence of longer-term outputs, outcomes and impacts achieved through the Newton Fund investment.
This objective related to the need for accountability for one of DSIT’s flagship investments, by looking at the extent and nature of its achievements.
2: Provide improved knowledge of the Value for Money (VfM) achieved.
DSIT is emerging as a leader within UK government in developing VfM approaches for R&I funds/programmes. This evaluation provided evidence to compare other R&I funds and contribute to further development of an adapted version of Julian King/Oxford Policy Management’s rubric-based, evaluative approach.
3: Generate learning from longer-term Fund operations to inform management and implementation of current/future R&I funds, particularly those with ODA funding.
The utilisation-focus of the evaluation ensured that it provided insights for current and future R&I funds. In particular, lessons were expected to help inform the implementation of DSIT’s International Science Partnerships Fund (ISPF), which has many similarities including many of the same partner organisations.
Methods and approaches
Our equity and utilisation-focused evaluation involved four modules:
- Module 1 brougth together innovative data science methods and theory-based evaluation expertise, giving a robust picture of longer-term outcomes.
- Module 2 analysed Newton Fund’s impacts, using bricolage to understand pathways to impact at country and fund levels.
- Module 3 provided a robust rubric-based VfM assessment of the fund, using evidence from modules 1 and 2.
- Cross-cutting module 4 provided synthesis insights across all modules, and supported learning by DSIT and other stakeholders.
Outcomes and impact
Read the Newton Fund Evaluation Final Report: Assessing progress towards impact.
The evaluation delivered impact by:
- Providing robust, long‑term evidence on outcomes and emerging impacts, strengthening accountability for a major ODA-funded research and innovation portfolio.
- Demonstrating that system‑wide research capacity strengthening – across researchers, institutions and ecosystems – is a critical foundation for longer‑term policy, practice and commercial impact.
- Clarifying why policy influence and commercialisation outcomes have been limited to date, shifting expectations away from short‑term results and towards realistic impact pathways.
- Identifying concrete design and delivery features (such as matched funding, government‑to‑government collaboration and partnership equity) that materially improve effectiveness.
- Generating practical recommendations now being used to inform the design of future ODA‑funded R&I programmes, particularly around knowledge translation, flexibility of delivery models, and monitoring and evaluation systems.
