The Nesta Future Ready Fund (FRF) is a £500,000 fund designed to support organisations in developing high-potential, early-stage interventions that tap into and promote the social and emotional skills of young people aged 11 to 18.  During 2019 and 2020, the Sussex project team -- Professor Robin Banerjee, Professor Janet Boddy, and research fellow Lucy Roberts -- conducted an evaluation of work by10 organisations funded by Nesta to deliver specific interventions designed to build young people’s social and emotional skills.   These covered a diverse range of approaches, from targeted work with vulnerable young people through to whole-school interventions designed to promote social and emotional skills across large student cohorts.

The Sussex team’s role as evaluation partner involved two core elements: (a) providing expertise to support grantees with evaluating their own interventions; and (b) developing insights about the implementation and potential impacts of work to develop social and emotional skills across the FRF as a whole.  

More information about the Future Ready Fund and the executive summary of the Sussex evaluation work can be found on the Nesta webpages.