What is dissemination and exploitation (D&E)?
Dissemination and exploitation are 2 key activities to increase visibility of the project results and make them available to the relevant stakeholders to use them and generate further impact:
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diffuse knowledge
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increase the uptake of research and innovation project results in the EU
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demonstrate the generated impact of the projects funded
Dissemination
The public disclosure of the results not only by scientific publications but via any pertinent medium, aiming to the uptake of results within the scientific community and open up potential business opportunities for novel products or services.
Dissemination means making results available to the people that can best make use of them e.g. scientific community, industry, other commercial players, policymakers, and more.
Exploitation
The use of results in developing, creating and marketing or improving a product or process, or in creating and providing a service in standardisation activities or shaping a policy, focusing on the actual use of the results.
Exploitation may include recommendations for policy or facilitate uptake by others e.g. through making results available under open licences.
Focus on project results
The focus of the dissemination and exploitation policy is on the results, i.e. all output generated by the project during its implementation (know-how, innovative solutions, algorithms, proof of feasibility, new business models, policy recommendations, guidelines, prototypes, demonstrators, databases and datasets, trained researchers, new infrastructures, networks, etc).
The results have the potential to be either commercially exploited, e.g. products or services, or lay the foundation for further research, work for policy making or innovation, e.g. novel knowledge, insights, technologies, methods, data, and more.
EC D&E Tools and Opportunities
The European Commission designed and is implementing a dissemination and exploitation strategy to support funding beneficiaries taking their results a step further e.g. market uptake, wider scientific use, advice for policymaking, etc.
The Commission supports this by
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offering free tailor-made dissemination and exploitation support services
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providing the tools aimed at increasing visibility and recognition of successful results
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putting forward a Commission-wide scheme to collect and utilise results relevant to policy making i.e. Feedback to Policy framework
Specialised consulting services free-of-charge to support the project beneficiaries in better implementation of their dissemination and exploitation activities. The services include portfolio dissemination and exploitation strategy, business plan development and go-to-market guidance.
A tool to analyse and identify high potential innovations coming from key innovators in EU-funded research and innovation projects. Through the Dealflow.eu platform investors & corporates can search & discover the most promising EU-funded innovations.
Horizon Results Platform (HRP)
An online platform available to project beneficiaries to upload their exploitable results and promote them to targeted audiences to make use of them and facilitate or realise their exploitation.
A tailored, free-of-charge, first-line Intellectual Property (IP) support service provided by the European Commission, specifically designed to help European start-ups and other SMEs involved in EU-funded collaborative research projects to efficiently protect existing IP and manage and valorise new IP in collaborative R&I efforts.
Intellectual property (IP) service providing free-of-charge support to help European SMEs and beneficiaries of EU-funded research projects manage their IP in the context of transnational business or EU research and innovation programmes.
Recognition
An initiative to recognise and celebrate outstanding projects that have used their results to provide value for society.
Clean Hydrogen Partnership is rewarding its top projects and beneficiaries of funding for their excellent achievements in 2022, in an Awards ceremony during the Hydrogen Week annual event. Each year the JU awards the Best Success Story, the Best Innovation, the Best Outreach and the recently introduced European H2Valley(s) of the Year.
EU awards and cash prizes for innovative solutions to societal challenges
Legal obligations
Beneficiaries of the EU's research and innovation framework programmes are legally obliged to disseminate and exploit results.
In Horizon 2020 as stated in the rules for participation and articles 28 and 29 it is an obligation for the beneficiaries to plan and implement the dissemination and exploitation of the project results.
Article 28: exploitation of results
Article 29: dissemination of results
In Horizon Europe, the successor to Horizon 2020, Exploitation and Dissemination remains an obligation under article 39 of the regulation.
Article 39: Exploitation and dissemination
More info on the D&E in Clean Hydrogen JU programme is available in the Info Days 2022 D&E presentation
Related Links
Dissemination and exploitation of research results
Research and Innovation webpage on D&E strategy, documents, tools and opportunities related to disseminating and exploiting research project results.
Communication, dissemination and exploitation
Α quick guide on why they all matter and what is the difference.
Dissemination and exploitation strategy for Horizon Europe
information on the background, vision and mission, objectives and related activities of the Dissemination and Exploitation (D&E) Strategy for Horizon Europe.