Making the Most of Your H2020 Project

Excellent science needs effective communication and dissemination. Bringing research and its outcomes to the attention of non-scientific audiences, scientific peers, potential business partners or policymakers fosters collaboration and innovation. Strategic communication and dissemination will help to explain the wider societal relevance of science, build support for future research and innovation funding, ensure uptake of results within the scientific community, and open up potential business opportunities for novel products or services. Overall, it helps to increase the impact of research and innovation in many ways. Yet, there is still some confusion about what the terms communication, dissemination and exploitation in Horizon 2020 really mean: how do these terms and their corresponding activities relate to each other, and how can they be distinguished from one another? This document will clarify the terminology by illustrating the differences between communication, dissemination and exploitation, and point out the areas they have in common. It is intended as an introduction, and will provide a helpful overview when developing your project’s outreach and exploitation strategy and plan. In addition to this concise document there already exists a series of useful documents such as online manuals and guides that provide further information on how to implement these actions, a list is included at the end of this document.