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Complementary expertise that delivers actionable insights.

Shivam and Soniya combine field and systems understanding with empirical and methodological depth, translating analytical rigour into practical, on-the-ground implementation support.

Soniya Gupta-Rawal

Empirical methods, markets, innovation

Shivam Rawal

Implementation, measurement, evidence use

Soniya Gupta-Rawal and Shivam Rawal together at an event

Why we built Research Impact Lab

Built from experience.Grounded in reality.Designed for impact.

Across classrooms, public systems, research teams, nonprofits, and emerging markets, we kept encountering the same challenge: organisations were generating data and commissioning studies, yet the path from evidence to practical decision-making remained unclear.

Research Impact Lab was established to bridge that gap. The firm helps partners begin with the decisions they need to make, develop evidence that is responsive to context, and translate findings into strategies, tools, systems, and actions that can be applied in practice.

Our approach combines methodological rigour with openness and collaboration. Rather than beginning with a predetermined method, we start by listening, clarifying assumptions, and understanding the realities in which the work will be used. Each engagement is designed alongside the people who will generate, interpret, and act on the evidence, ensuring that the final insights are not only credible, but relevant, practical, and ready to inform what happens next.

Portrait of Soniya Gupta-Rawal and Shivam Rawal
Portrait of Shivam Rawal wearing a black roll-neck sweater

Areas of expertise

  • Education measurement
  • Assessment design
  • Programme evaluation
  • Mixed-methods research
  • Monitoring, evaluation, and learning
  • Research-to-practice translation

Co-founder

Shivam Rawal

Measurement, evaluation, education systems, and evidence use.

Shivam Rawal is an education research, measurement, evaluation, and evidence-use specialist with more than eight years of experience across India, Sub-Saharan Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. He works at the point where technical design meets delivery: helping partners shape studies, improve measurement, develop curricula and assessments, interpret evidence, and translate findings into programme and funding decisions.

Shivam began his career as a Teach For India Fellow, teaching mathematics in a low-resource school in Delhi. He later worked with Educational Initiatives and Central Square Foundation on assessment, structured pedagogy, teacher development, and large-scale foundational learning programmes. As a Fulbright-Nehru Scholar at Columbia University, and later through policy implementation work in Washington, DC, he deepened his understanding of how evidence, finance, policy, and delivery interact across education systems.

LinkedInFulbright profile
Portrait of Soniya Gupta-Rawal wearing a navy suit

Areas of expertise

  • Quantitative research
  • Field experiments
  • Causal inference
  • Econometric analysis
  • AI-enabled research tools
  • Entrepreneurship and market systems

Co-founder

Soniya Gupta-Rawal

Quantitative research, field experiments, emerging markets, and AI-enabled tools.

Soniya Gupta-Rawal is a quantitative marketing researcher at Cambridge Judge Business School studying how informational, social, and institutional constraints shape decisions for entrepreneurs, firms, and consumers in emerging markets. Her work focuses particularly on micro-entrepreneurs, women-led businesses, informal retail, digital adoption, and frugal innovation.

Working across India, Indonesia, Egypt, and Sub-Saharan Africa, Soniya uses field experiments, causal inference, econometric analysis, AI-enabled tools, remote-sensing data, and grounded field partnerships to examine what works, for whom, and why. She holds an MPhil in Strategy, Marketing and Operations from the University of Cambridge, completed as a Commonwealth Scholar.

Personal websiteLinkedIn

How the perspectives combine

Shaped by experience across systems, sectors, and markets.

Field and systems understanding

We pay attention to how programmes are delivered, how people experience them, and what organisational or system conditions shape results.

Empirical and methodological depth

We combine rigorous quantitative and qualitative methods to answer each question with credibility.

Services designed to inform on-ground decisions

We translate evidence into implementation strategies, tools, and systems shaped around the needs of last-mile stakeholders.

A working journey

Journey behind Research Impact Lab

A selection of projects, partnerships, and milestones that have shaped the beginning of the Research Impact Lab.

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Your next decision deserves evidence built for purpose.

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