Evaluation of the Frontiers programme: Final evaluation report

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Guthrie, Susan

Contributor:

Kapoor, Devika

Moriarty, Saoirse

Puri, Ishita

Qu, Michelle

Rigby, Ishmeala

Language:

English

Other Title:

Evaluation of the Frontiers programme

Place of Publication:

RAND Corporation 2024

Summary:

The Royal Academy of Engineering's Frontiers programme aims to foster collaboration and interdisciplinary thinking among researchers, innovators and practitioners from around the world to address complex global challenges. The Frontiers design is a unique funding model comprised of four interrelated strands: Frontiers symposia, which bring together international early- and mid-career researchers across disciplines and sectors to discuss global challenges; seed funding, which enables ideas and collaborations from the symposia to be developed further; follow-on funding to advance work established in the seed-funded projects; and Champions awards, which are networking grants available to symposia participants. As of July 2024, the Frontiers programme has held 23 symposia in 12 countries and online since its launch in 2016, connecting more than 1,000 participants from 63 countries around the world. RAND Europe was commissioned by the Academy to conduct an independent evaluation of the Frontiers programme. The evaluation assessed the programme's contributions, its added value and role in the wider ecosystem using a theory-based evaluation approach. To achieve the evaluation's aims, the project team developed a Frontiers programme Theory of Change, a set of evaluation questions and a wider evaluation framework structured around the four programme strands. Evaluation findings highlight that Frontiers is a unique offering in the research for development landscape that addresses a key challenge. The programme is entirely focused on providing a forum for collaboration and development of new and creative ideas to address global challenges, with funding invested directly in ideation, development of cross-disciplinary collaborations, and seed funding, to test out new and creative ideas and approaches. The Frontiers programme explicitly targets early- and mid-career researchers and can provide a stepping stone for these researchers — particularly those from resource-poor settings — towards an independent research career. Several aspects of the programme, particularly the inclusive design of the symposia and provision of resources and funds for people to attend, are exemplary. Consideration of equity and fairness is robust, and events are well designed, well delivered and smoothly run. Challenges around funding to international collaborators, and other areas for improvement, are highlighted in the evaluation recommendations.