Our Insight & Impact Evaluation Services

We work alongside the Education, Public and Social Care sectors to deliver insightful, robust and impactful Research and Evaluation programmes. These deliver meaningful insights that help inform strategic decision-making.
In addition to this, we also specialise in Youth Research techniques and are experienced in engaging Gen-z as research participants.
Public & Social Care Sectors
We have significant experience working within these sectors and are invested in delivering projects that make positive changes in, and have a positive impact on, people’s lives.
“Cosmos have proven themselves to be a highly skilled professional company who work with dedication and enthusiasm towards meeting their client’s brief”
Emily Rozier – Head of Funding, Graduation and Awards. University of Birmingham
Student & HE Insights
We help the HE sector understand key drivers in the student market, delivering actionable insights in:
- Student Recruitment: what are the motivations to choose an institution as first choice?
- Student Experience: what are the real satisfaction drivers and how do these align to the NSS?
- Student Retention: what are the key non-continuation indicators? How can we reduce the non-continuation rate?
- Sector Trends: how do our courses perform in relation to our key competitors? Is there a market for our new course?
Impact Evaluation of access and outreach activities
We work with Access / Widening Participation teams and Uni Connect consortia, to robustly evaluate and measure the effectiveness and impact of outreach initiatives through interrogative primary and secondary impact research methods.
Using key theoretical frameworks such as the Theory of Change, NERUPI and Kirkpatrick models, we anchor our Impact Evaluation programmes on current guidance and best practice.
Read about our Impact Case Studies, for the Aimhigher West Midlands Uni Connect Consortia.
Core services

Youth and Student Research
We are highly experienced in engaging pre-16, Gen-Z and Millennial audiences in research projects. Our methods have been developed with young people in mind in order to get closer and deliver more meaningful insights.
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Impact Evaluation of Access and Outreach Activities
We work with Uni Connect consortiums and University departments, as well as Access and Widening Participation teams, to both understand and measure the impact of outreach activities.
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Higher Education Insights
We work alongside some of the largest HEIs in the UK, supporting them to understand the student journey. This in turn helps institutions to improve recruitment, conversion and retention rates as well as understand key satisfaction drivers. In addition, we also successfully scope and launch new courses, assess the impact of funding and awards on student outcomes, and interrogate large HEI datasets to uncover important trends.
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Impact Evaluation
We understand the ever growing need to robustly evaluate and measure the impact of government funded projects/programmes, within the education and public sectors. Clearly, this is a complex undertaking which often has many stakeholders involved and there are often challenges to achieving this.
Read moreOur Approach and Methods
Qualitative. Quantitative. Accurate Advanced Analytics.
We carefully craft our approach around your needs. By using a variety of methodologies in both our primary and secondary research programmes, we deliver insights that answer questions, measure impact and guide strategic decision-making.
Delivering insights that have impact
We understand the importance of effective presentation and dissemination of key insights when seeking buy-in from key stakeholders. This is why our outputs are visually engaging and focus on actionable recommendations.
Examples of our outputs include:
– Data visualisation
– Dashboards
– Infographics
– Film
– Motion graphics
– Exhibitions
– Collaborative workshops & debriefs

Online Surveys

Discussion Groups

Creative and Participatory Evaluation Methods

In-depth Interviews

Experiential Vox Pops

Digital Diaries

In-situ Intercepts

Tracking and Longitudinal

Behavioural Economics
