13 April 2016

All Actions: What is the difference between communication, dissemination and exploitation?

Dissemination is the public disclosure of the results of the project in any medium. Disclosure may sound passive, like a shop opening up, but it is an activity, like a shopkeeper attracting customers. It is a process of promotion and awareness-raising right from the beginning of a project. It makes research results known to various stakeholder groups (like research peers, industry and other commercial actors, professional organisations, policymakers) in a targeted way, to enable them to use the results in their own work.  This process must be planned and organised at the beginning of each project, usually in a dissemination plan.

Exploitation is the use of the results during and after the project’s implementation. It can be for commercial purposes but also for improving policies, and for tackling economic and societal problems.

Communication means taking strategic and targeted measures for promoting the action itself and its results to a multitude of audiences, including the media and the public, and possibly engaging in a two-way exchange. The aim is to reach out to society as a whole and in particular to some specific