Dissemination and exploitation of research results

Every year researchers funded by the European Union produce a substantial number of research results. For these results to benefit society, they must be made available to the relevant people and used to generate further impact.

Dissemination and exploitation are 2 key activities to

• diffuse knowledge
• increase the uptake of research and innovation project results in the EU
• 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. 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.

Dissemination helps to explain the wider relevance of science to society, build support for future research and innovation funding, ensure the uptake of results within the scientific community, and open up potential business opportunities for novel products or services.

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.

Exploitation can be commercial, societal, political, or aimed at improving public knowledge and action. It also includes recommendations for policy making through feedback to policy project partners or facilitating uptake by others e.g. through making results available under open licences.

Exploitation focuses on the actual use of the results, translating research concepts into concrete solutions that have a positive impact on the public's quality of life.

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.

These may include 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.

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

• offering free tailor-made dissemination and exploitation support services
• providing the tools aimed at increasing visibility and recognition of successful results
• putting forward a Commission-wide scheme to collect and utilise results relevant to policy making i.e. Feedback to Policy framework

Objectives of the strategy

• guide and train applicants and beneficiaries, by offering dissemination and exploitation capacity building activities
• motivate beneficiaries, with incentives to scale up their results
• support beneficiaries by offering targeted services, including on Intellectual Property Management
• synergise with other EU programmes and initiatives

In line with the new European Research Area, the dissemination and exploitation strategy sets the vision of making Horizon Europe a global reference for transforming research and innovation results into scientific, economic and societal value.

The dissemination and exploitation strategy aims to accompany beneficiaries along their dissemination and exploitation journey support them through an integrated ecosystem of  services, and bring them closer to relevant stakeholders.

Further activities are foreseen to meet the aforementioned objectives while delivering on the unique aspects of Horizon Europe, such as the EU Missions, as well as on cross-cutting priorities, like the Widening participation and Spreading excellence.

Beneficiaries of the EU's research and innovation framework programmes are legally obliged to disseminate and exploit results.

Horizon Europe

Horizon Europe is the successor to Horizon 2020. It runs from 2021 to 2027.

Exploitation and Dissemination remains an obligation under article 39 of the regulation establishing Horizon Europe.

Article 39: Exploitation and dissemination

Horizon 2020

Horizon 2020 was the research and innovation funding programme until 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

Dissemination & Exploitation

This session introduces you to the Dissemination & Exploitation Strategy, highlighting the role of the Horizon Results Platform, Horizon Dashboard, CORDIS, and the Horizon Results Booster, as well as testimonials from EU-funded projects.

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Horizon Results Booster

This info session covers information about the services and includes testimonials from those who have already benefited from Horizon Results Booster support.

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Horizon Results Platform:

Discover how the European Commission's Horizon Results Platform (HRP) promotes EU R&I innovative solution(s) to third parties: the investor community, partners, policy makers and other actors that can help promote project results to the right audience.

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Horizon Impact Award (HIA)

An initiative to recognise and celebrate outstanding projects that have used their results to provide value for society. The award aims to show the wider socio-economic benefits of EU investment in research and innovation. It also enables individuals or teams to showcase their best practices and achievements and aspires to encourage other beneficiaries to use and manage their results in the best way possible.

Horizon Impact Award (HIA)

Other EU awards

RTD-DISSEMINATION-EXPLOITATION-BOOSTERec [dot] europa [dot] eu (RTD-DISSEMINATION-EXPLOITATION-BOOSTER[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu)