Research and analysis
Evaluation of the growth hubs: 2015 to 2020
An independent evaluation of the Growth Hubs programme between 2015 and 2020. The evaluation was commissioned by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and carried out by Technopolis Group throughout 2020 and 2021.
Documents
Details
The evaluation took place between October 2020 and December 2021, and:
- explored the delivery of business support through the network of local growth hubs across England
- assessed the impacts of the network
- identified delivery challenges and best practice across the network
- made recommendations to inform future design and funding of the programme
The study included:
- a process evaluation
- an impact evaluation
- a strategic evaluation of the growth hub network
Objectives
The primary study objectives were to:
- improve the understanding of the growth hubs’ activity
- assess how far growth hubs provide easy, quick, and simple business support
- better understand the business customer journey and associated impact through growth hub data analysis
- further understand the growth hubs’ role in the wider business support landscape
Methodology
The methodology included a variety of approaches:
- interviews and workshops with relevant parties (growth hubs, government, key partners and stakeholders, and businesses that had received support)
- analysis of annual reports and monitoring data for growth hubs
- analysis of firm-level data provided by growth hubs
- econometric analysis based on data from the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR)