{"id":45859,"date":"2026-08-19T09:00:29","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T07:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nexuswelt.com\/?p=45859"},"modified":"2026-08-18T16:28:45","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T14:28:45","slug":"horizon-europe-communication-dissemination-exploitation-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nexuswelt.com\/de\/horizon-europe-communication-dissemination-exploitation-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Write a Communication and Dissemination Plan That Passes Evaluation"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Three to five independent experts will read your proposal. Each spends a few hours on it before the consensus meeting. In that time they are trying to answer one question about this part of the document: will these results leave the lab?<\/span><\/span><\/p>

A vague paragraph answers that question badly, and it costs points under the Impact criterion. This article covers what to write, in what structure, with what level of specificity \u2014 and what evaluation summary reports consistently say about the sections that score three out of five instead of five.<\/span><\/span><\/p>

Where this sits in the evaluation<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/h2>

Communication, dissemination and exploitation are assessed as part of the Impact criterion. Impact is scored alongside Excellence and Implementation, and in two-stage calls only Excellence and Impact are evaluated at the first stage \u2014 which raises the weight of this section considerably at the point where the field is widest.<\/span><\/span><\/p>

What evaluation summary reports repeatedly identify in proposals scoring three out of five on Impact: outputs listed without an exploitation pathway, missing or unquantified indicators, and a dissemination plan that amounts to publications and conferences. Those three patterns are worth memorising, because they are avoidable in a day of work.<\/span><\/span><\/p>

Structure it as three sections, not one<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/h2>

The most common structural failure is a single block of text mixing all three activities. It is flagged repeatedly as a recurring applicant error, and it produces a section that cannot be scored well because the evaluator cannot locate the answers.<\/span><\/span><\/p>

Write three clearly separated sections. Even the headings do work here: an evaluator scanning for the exploitation plan should find a heading that says exploitation.<\/span><\/span><\/p>

Activity<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/td>The question it answers<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/td>What belongs in it<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/td><\/tr><\/thead>
Communication<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/td>Who needs to know this project exists, and why should they care?<\/span><\/span><\/td>Audiences beyond the specialists, including media and the public. Plain-language messaging tied to what changes in people’s lives. Channels, timing, responsibilities.<\/span><\/span><\/td><\/tr>
Dissemination<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/td>Who could use these results, and how will they find them?<\/span><\/span><\/td>Scientific community, industry, policymakers, civil society. Publications, open data, technical briefings, standards bodies, targeted workshops.<\/span><\/span><\/td><\/tr>
Exploitation<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/td>Who will actually use each result, and for what?<\/span><\/span><\/td>Per key result: the intended user, the route to use, and what has to be true for it to happen. Commercialisation, licensing, policy input, standardisation, further research, education.<\/span><\/span><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div>

The specificity test<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/h2>

Almost every weakness in this section reduces to insufficient specificity. Four substitutions fix most of it.<\/span><\/span><\/p>
Instead of<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/td>Write<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/td><\/tr><\/thead>
„Significant societal benefit“<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/td>Which group, experiencing what change, measured how<\/span><\/span><\/td><\/tr>
„We will disseminate to industry“<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/td>Which segment of industry, through which channel, at what point in their decision cycle<\/span><\/span><\/td><\/tr>
„Results will be exploited by partners“<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/td>Result A will be licensed by Partner X; Result B will feed a standardisation proposal via Partner Y<\/span><\/span><\/td><\/tr>
„We will hold workshops and publish papers“<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/td>Three workshops targeting named stakeholder groups, with the specific decision each is intended to inform<\/span><\/span><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>

Evaluators have read the left-hand column several thousand times. It does not score. The right-hand column takes no more space \u2014 it is the same sentence with the placeholders filled in.<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>

Exploitation: the section that decides the score<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/h2>

Dissemination plans are usually adequate. Exploitation plans are usually where proposals lose. Two failures dominate.<\/span><\/span><\/p>

The first is listing academic publications as the exploitation strategy. Publications are dissemination. Exploitation is what someone does with the result afterwards. A proposal whose exploitation section lists conferences and papers has effectively left the section blank, however well written it is.<\/span><\/span><\/p>

The second is treating exploitation as premature. Low-TRL consortia frequently write that exploitation planning is too early to be meaningful at this stage. Evaluators flag this explicitly. Early-stage research still has identifiable downstream users, and a plausible pathway can be described even when the destination is uncertain. Saying it is too early reads as not having thought about it.<\/span><\/span><\/p>

The structure that works<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/h3>

Build the exploitation section around results rather than around partners. For each key exploitable result:<\/span><\/span><\/p>