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• Revenue funding from ERDF (£2.6m) and Swansea University (£1.6m) to support the appointment of researchers in LegalTech and Cyber Threats, a software development team, and a project management team.
Evaluation purpose and coverage
1.6 Consistent with the requirements of ERDF funding, Swansea University committed to undertaking a robust evaluation of the operation. As such, the University commissioned SQW in February 2020 to lead Inception and Mid-Term Evaluations of the operation. The University then subsequently, and separately, commissioned SQW to lead a Final Evaluation in July 2022 (the subject of this report). 1.7 Completed in June 2020, the Inception Evaluation focused on the development of a logic model/theory of change for the operation, clarifying the data to be collected to support the programme of evaluation, and confirming the approach to the Mid-Term Evaluation. 1.8 The Mid-Term Evaluation, completed in January 2022, focused on assessing how effectively the operation was progressing against its aims and objectives at an interim point. Overall, the findings at the Mid-Term Evaluation stage were encouraging, indicating strong progress in delivering against its Business Plan. Key messages included:
• the operation had delivered a substantial amount of activity in a challenging context and was broadly on course to deliver outputs and outcomes in line with expectations
• the Covid-19 pandemic had inevitably influenced delivery, leading to a substantial underspend against budget and the need to re-profile the budget reducing the total ERDF grant from an initial £4m to £3.35m • securing research funding had proved challenging (owing to delays in the appointment of research staff and to the completion of the Cyber Threats Suite), with modest progress made at that stage against the ERDF target of £3.4m in research funding secured by the close of the operation • a range of collaborative R&D projects had progressed successfully, leading to tangible prototypes to be tested and evaluated with users, and in some cases platforms which were available for use
• there was evidence of wider emerging benefits in relation to enhanced partnerships, networks, and behaviours supporting collaborative R&D.
1.9 Some two years on from the Mid-Term Evaluation, the core purpose of this Final Evaluation is to provide an assessment of the impact of the operation as it nears the end of its ERDF period against the aims and objectives set out in the Business Plan. This includes an assessment of the extent to which the benefits realised are ‘additional’ compared to what
Legal Innovation Lab Wales
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