Presenting a credible path to deliver the innovation to the market and contributing to company scale-up(s) is crucial for the Horizon Europe funding programme (as well as the former Horizon Europe). Therefore, the Impact Section is perhaps the most critical part of a Horizon Europe proposal, even more important than the innovation itself or its implementation. The Impact Section is usually split into three sub-categories: exploitation of the results (including dissemination and exploitation plan, as well as communication tasks), market penetration strategy (including the business plan, pricing scheme, supply chain), and the intellectual property and regulatory assessment. In this article, we will focus on and provide insight into the first segment.
Why is the promotion of the project’s results so important?
Before discussing promotion, marketing, and awareness, it might be helpful to provide the official definition of the project results for an EU project. According to the official glossary of the EC, the results of an EU project are any tangible or intangible outputs of the action, such as data, knowledge, and information, in whatever form or nature, whether or not they can be protected. They are the outputs generated during the project, which can create impact during and/or after the EU funding procedure.
The promotion of these results of a proposal is the key to its commercialization. As mentioned above, no matter how technologically innovative a project is, if there is no comprehensive plan to spread the word in the national, European, and potentially global markets, its commercial success is at stake. Commercialization (e.g., stakeholder engagement) is the next step that leads to market penetration.
Common barriers on the way to effective Communication, Dissemination, and Exploitation activities
However, applicants often underestimate the importance of demonstrating a clear, even a preliminary, plan for the above concepts when submitting an EU proposal. The main reasons are:
- There is a lack of clarity in the perception of the difference between communication, dissemination, and exploitation.
- Focusing on implementing and validating technical objectives, as they often wrongly consider that working on these concepts (especially exploitation) is still too early (this is a common practice for programmes with lower starting Technological Readiness Level (TRL).
- Limited consideration of what can be valuable key results of the project and/or a lack of interest from the partners to consider the value and potential unique selling points (USPs) of the key results outside their own (commercial, academic) communities.
- Lack of reflection and joint discussions within the consortia in collaborative projects.
Below, we will define and clarify the three main concepts (communication, dissemination, exploitation) and break down the goals of each one that the evaluators expect to see in an EU proposal.
Communication activities for a Horizon Europe project
The communication plan shall be based on strategic, targeted measures to promote the project and its results to multiple audiences, including the media and the public.
As with the other two concepts, the communication plan depends heavily on the nature of the EU project’s final output(s). Nevertheless, it is crucial to have a strategic plan, a holistic approach, on top of any necessary ad-hoc efforts, and define clear communicative objectives (e.g., raise awareness with online/offline tools and try to define these tools, establish synergies with external bodies such as national/international associations, achieve high visibility through the scientific community, via strong messages). Key goals that can apply to every proposal are:
- Reach out to society as a whole and, in particular, to specific audiences.
- Demonstrate how EU funding contributes to tackling societal challenges (also from a socio-economic point of view), highlighting the environmental approach where applicable.
- In our current Covid-19 era, any (in)direct relevance of the project to the pandemic can be highly valued.
Communication toolbox
Standard tools that can serve this purpose are: (i) Visual identity and brand (e.g. work on a preliminary project logo); (ii) project website and blog; (iii) informative material (both printable – banners, posters, flyers – and multimedia – videos, digital flyers); (iv) newsletters and extensive use of the social media, especially Twitter (create campaigns for targeted audience); (v) participation in industry events (it will add value to make a first research of potential events that the applicant may be interested in attending/participating and mention the list in the proposal. Tip: Target events in the primary geographical target markets, and (vi) achieve commercial publications in online/offline magazines and blogs.
Practical tip: Relating each potential tool with a target date within the project timeline (e.g. website to be launched by month 3) and with a target value (e.g. attend at least four conferences during the project’s duration) will show to the evaluators that you have at least conduct a preliminary communication plan for your project.
Dissemination of a Horizon Europe project
Dissemination activities are any action related to the public disclosure of the project results by any appropriate means, including scientific publications. Separating the concept from the goal of the dissemination and communication plan is something applicants often find hard to understand. The main difference is that the communication plan focuses on the project and its results, whilst the dissemination plan focuses only on the results. For a comprehensive dissemination plan, it is essential to: (i) make a clear selection of the dissemination objectives (e.g., promoting agreements with investors or commercial partners, raising awareness in specific market segments and stakeholders); and (ii) designate partners’ responsibility for dissemination. The main goals of the dissemination strategy are:
- Wisely identify the results to disseminate and transfer knowledge and results to these stakeholders who can best use them.
- Identify the appropriate dissemination channels.
- Maximize the impact of research. As such, you enable the value of results to be potentially broader than the original focus.
- Monitor and evaluate the effects of the dissemination activities.
By reaching these goals, the applicants will not only strengthen and raise awareness of their profile in the market, but also prevent the results from becoming sticky and effectively lost.
As said, the communication plan aims to raise awareness of the project and its results. At the same time, the dissemination activities aim to make the results available for use, enabling uptake by specific audiences who may incorporate them into their own work (e.g., the scientific community, industrial or other commercial actors, policymakers, professional organizations).
The main tools, among others, to achieve that are (i) scientific publications in relevant journals (Tip: Having academic entities in a collaborative project can constitute a key asset in this regard); (ii) share results on online media (research data, software, reports) and (iii) organize training and workshop sessions, as well as (iv) a final project event to demonstrate to customers.
Exploitation of a Horizon Europe project
Exploitation activities have a broader scope compared to communication and dissemination. They can include actions such as using the project results in further research activities beyond those covered by the concerned project, developing, creating, and marketing a product or process, creating and providing a service, or even standardization activities. The main difference between the concepts above is that the primary goal of the exploitation plan is to use the results for societal, scientific, financial, or even political purposes (e.g., to concretise the value and impact of the R&I activity for societal challenges).
The project partners are the first to exploit the project results themselves, by their own efforts, or to facilitate exploitation by others (e.g., by making results available under open licenses). This can take place via innovation management actions, copyright management, data management plan, and stakeholder/user engagement, among others. Standard tools towards these directions are (i) patent publications; (ii) establishment of spin-off or start-up companies; (iii) license practices (open, copyleft); and (iv) use of the results for academic purposes (PhD, post-PhD).
The submitted dissemination and exploitation plan is not the final one!
This is an importance point that all applicants shall be aware. The plan to be presented in the proposal, as well as other aspects (e.g. the financial projections, the pricing strategy, even the business plan) is not necessarily the final ones. EU projects are very dynamic, especially given the development and progress that can occur between the time of the EU grant application and the project’s implementation and completion. As such, the EU project shall:
- Update the plans based on the project’s progress and emerging results.
- Consider changes in stakeholders, the work context, and potential uses of results throughout the project lifetime.
- Report on the updates periodically.
Final tip: Having separate deliverables for the communication, dissemination, and exploitation plan is highly recommended.
