GC Insight were awarded the work after competitive tender alongside our delivery partners Resource Futures to complete an independent, final impact evaluation of UKRI’s Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging (SSPP) Challenge, a £60 million five-year programme. 

The purpose of the challenge – one of 23 delivered under the UKRI Challenge Fund – was to support bold, ambitious, large-scale innovations to bring about wholescale changes that improve sustainability in the UK plastic packaging industry. Just under 90 diverse projects were supported by the Challenge through a combination of eight competitive funding competitions and a series of direct funding awards. 

The Challenge was evaluated in three phases which commenced in 2020. The third and final phase involved a Theory Based Evaluation to understand the outcomes and impacts of the Challenge to date. This included a multi-mode suite of primary and secondary evidence collation and analysis, and a contribution assessment, which included process tracing to consider the impact and influence of the Challenge on individual projects. 

The evaluation helped UKRI to understand whether the Challenge had met its objectives, examined the economic and environmental impacts achieved to date, and provided recommendations to further support funded projects in achieving their full potential, capitalising on the momentum generated by the Challenge.