Measuring true impact: introducing a new framework to turn our data into meaningful change

But it’s a very broad term. As an organisation with diverse projects spanning multiple industries, establishing universal measures for ​‘impact’ is no easy task. A project team optimising EV batteries and one producing synthetic DNA are likely to have completely different outcomes and collect different information when assessing the impact of their work. 

That means we’ve tended to mark our impact by topline stats such as the number of projects we’ve supported or the number of academic institutions we’ve engaged. And, while these are important, they don’t always tell us the full story. 

Standardising how we measure the true impact of our projects is something we must do – to set long-term goals and measure our progress towards them, to replicate processes that are working well and avoid ones that aren’t.

That’s why we’ve adopted a new, more forensic approach to evaluating our impact. And we’ve developed a game-changing new tool to help us do it. 

Measuring true impact

Our new Impact Evaluation Framework enables us to move beyond activity tracking and assess in detail the role CPI has played in each project. It also allows us to draw more precise lines of causality from our input in each project to its final outcomes, whether specific such as helping secure regulatory approval for a new product or broader like creating a healthier society. 

It relies on our Impact team meticulously collecting, validating, analysing and reporting data, and homing in on several key indicators that link our diverse projects together. 

We divide these into three main categories: 

Industry support is the largest of the three. At the organisational level, it looks at partners we’ve supported through projects, workshops, consultancy, and other services. In the 2023/24 financial year alone, this included 189 support activities for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and 111 for non-SMEs. 

In addition, we submitted 123 collaborative research and development (CR&D) funding bids, convening industrial and academic partners to tackle shared innovation goals. We also played a pivotal role in the development of 13 business cases, preparing some of our most promising customers for their private investment journey. 

Further along in the innovation journey, we helped clients create 56 pieces of intellectual property and develop 89 products and processes in the 2023/24 financial year. Eight of them made their way to market to start having a tangible real-world impact. 

We are also looking at indicators that drill down to the project level. The maturity of a new technology is decided by its Technology Readiness Level (TRL) and one of the most important measures of our impact is progressing innovations through the nine levels of that scale. As a result, ​‘TRL movement’ is another crucial metric we use to measure our impact. 

The Strategic Leadership category recognises another important way we make impact: through influential thought leadership and industrial foresighting. As an organisation, we contribute to industry standards and regulations, cutting-edge research papers and technological roadmaps. We need to look at a completely different set of metrics to measure our progress in this area, some of which we have gathered for the very first time this year. 

In 2023/24, we contributed to 44 roadmaps and research papers and 19 sets of industry standards and regulations. We also plan to measure additional metrics, such as changes to policy and funding, as they emerge in the coming years.

Competence development is the third strand of our framework – another crucial way in which we make an impact. Innovation is driven by people. We can only unleash the potential of breakthrough technologies such as biopesticides and EV batteries if enough people have the skills to produce and maintain them at scale. So, alongside developing new technologies, we work to identify potential gaps in the workforce and provide training at various levels. 

We have formally recognised our impact in this area relatively recently. So, we needed to develop another new way to record and standardise how we report the volume and effectiveness of the training we deliver. In the first year of reporting, we supported 405 external learners – from scientists beginning their careers to experienced engineers furthering their skills – through a wide array of training activities. This included the RNA Training Academy, SME Outreach training, equipment training and many other programmes. 

From learning to implementation

It’s one thing to be able to define the full extent of the impact we make as an organisation. But how can we feed those learnings back into our everyday operations? 

We developed a new AI-supported Impact Reporting Tool, which we call Impact 360, to make this possible. Previously, all of the diverse data mentioned above had to be collected manually by reaching out to people across the full breadth of our organisation. The tool now provides a ​‘single source of truth’ that can be stored and accessed by any of our CPI colleagues. We have also connected with external data sources to feed in real-time accurate data thereby enabling us to collect critical data points to enhance data integrity. 

As well as key metrics, the tool gathers specific data from every project we work on. That means when a new product from one of our clients goes to market, we can quickly trace through our project history to find out exactly how instrumental our contribution was to that outcome. Equally, when taking on a new project, our teams can see what we have done in the field before and explore how we can harness that experience to make an even bigger impact. 

This approach is entirely new, not just here at CPI, but also in the eternal environment. And it’s set to transform how we work. 

Connecting the dots in this way enables us to be even more transparent and accountable in communicating the impact of our work. It will also make us more self-reflective, bringing fresh insights to help constantly refine our own processes. Ultimately, that will enable us to provide the most value to our clients and deliver groundbreaking, sustainable innovations that benefit society at large. 

CPI is an organisation driven by impact. Our new approach will ensure that we deliver it on the biggest possible scale.