Final Report Summary - ENVIMPACT (Increasing the impact of Central-Eastern European environment research results through more effective dissemination and exploitation)
Executive Summary:
The main objective of ENVIMPACT has been to enrich the EU knowledge base with the environment-related results of the Central and Eastern European (CEE) researchers, thus inducing new collaborations under both FP7 and the forthcoming Horizon 2020 programme which may lead to innovative solutions for the lasting protection of our environment. In order to realise this objective, ENVIMPACT partners implemented the following activities:
The project identified innovative environmental research practices and results originating from Central and Eastern Europe along pre-established selection criteria. The identified research practices and results were validated and then made available for researchers and stakeholders at the ENVIMPACT project website. Also, dissemination and exploitation practices in environmental research have been identified by means of questionnaires and interviews. With the help of a SWOT analysis, a list of the most common good practices were established and, by ranking the best performing projects, a list of “champions” was created. Furthermore, two consensus reports were compiled identifying the most successful dissemination activities and listing recommendations for better dissemination activities. Finally, the consortium prepared an audio-visual catalogue of innovative best practices in research communication and exploitation. To display the data detailed above, an online R&D map has been set up in collaboration with the sister project PROCEED at the project website. This map displays, in an “intelligent” and searchable manner, research results in the CEE countries, fed by the information collected and validated by both ENVIMPACT and PROCEED.
To facilitate the matching of policy and industry needs with available research results at the national level, the consortium organised national inter-sectoral workshops were organised in the CEE project partner countries, with the main objective of promoting and supporting discussion and knowledge exchange between researchers on one hand and policy makers and industry representatives as potential users of research results on the other hand. To train researchers in more effective ways of disseminating and exploiting research results, trainings were organised in the partner CEE countries with tailor-made training modules based on identified needs and project results. As a follow-up activity, a series of online mentoring sessions were also organised with the objective of taking advantage of a practical and cost-efficient web conference tool to offer online-assisted mentoring services to CEE researchers. Three of the trainings as well as the transnational project conference have been filmed and uploaded to the ENVIMPACT YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/ENVIMPACT).
The project website, including a public area and a restricted area for partners, serves as the project dissemination platform shared with sister project PROCEED. The website offers all the results mentioned above in a freely accessible way. Every four months, a concise e-newsflash with relevant news on environment-related research was prepared and distributed by the consortium partners. In addition to the website and the newsflash, the transnational project conference, held in Brussels towards the project’s end, formed the third pillar of the dissemination strategy of ENVIMPACT.
Project Context and Objectives:
Based on indications from EC and FP7 statistics, the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries participate at a low rate in the FP7 Environment theme. On the other hand, air pollution, chemical pollution and environmental risks should be handled with expressed interest in this region, due to severe environmental damages caused by decades of negligence and mishandling. The main objective of ENVIMPACT is to enrich the EU knowledge base with the environment-related results of the CEE researchers, thus inducing new collaborations under FP7 and Horizon 2020 which may lead to innovative solutions for the lasting protection of our environment. More specifically, ENVIMPACT aimed to:
• collect research practices and results of CEE researchers in the field of air pollution, chemical pollution and environmental technologies,
• improve the visibility, effectiveness and uptake of the results in the European Research Area,
• enhance the exploration of eco-Innovations originating in CEE countries,
• broaden opportunities for S&T collaboration between CEE and Western European researchers,
• involve more CEE researchers into FP projects in the field of environment,
• analyse the current communication of research results to different “user sectors”,
• find and test novel methods and tools for more effective communication and dissemination,
• train CEE researchers using innovative methods and tools for communication,
• provide a dynamic online approach to good examples of research communication.
Project Results:
ENVIMPACT partners, using local contacts, knowledge and the insight of national and transnational expert groups consisting of relevant academic, industrial/ETP and policy representatives, identified 421 innovative environmental research practices and results originating from Central and Eastern Europe. Selection criteria for the identification of these results were established. The identified research practices and results underwent validation by national experts and the approved results as well as second stage validation by experts at transnational level. Mapping of these results has been performed and they are now available for the governmental, academic and industrial stakeholders all over Europe at the ENVIMPACT project website.
The consortium identified dissemination and exploitation practices in environmental research projects both in the EU-15 partner countries and in the CEE countries by means of questionnaires and interviews. Altogether 329 questionnaires and 74 interviews were collected. In the framework of a SWOT analysis, performed in parallel for the EU-15 and CEE countries, the consortium analysed the collected dissemination and exploitation practices of research results, establishing a list of the most common good practices and, by ranking the best performing projects, creating a list of “champions”, i.e. those institutions and projects which performed dissemination very successfully. The results of the SWOT analysis were compiled in two consensus reports: one for policy makers and one for researchers, identifying the most successful dissemination activities and listing recommendations for better dissemination activities. Also based on the “champions” of the SWOT analysis, the consortium collected innovative best practices in research communication and exploitation in an audio-visual catalogue which has been widely promoted and distributed electronically by the consortium The catalogue contains at least one good practice per sector and project partner country, covering the fields of air pollution, chemical pollution and environmental technologies. The catalogue contains the following sections: table of contents of tools presented, short description of tools, and the demonstration of tools in practice through best practices. The catalogue is also available at the project website.
To display the data detailed above, an online R&D map has been set up in collaboration with the sister project PROCEED at the project website. The map, updated until the end of the project, contains a graphical representation of the distribution of research results in the CEE countries, fed by the information collected and validated by both ENVIMPACT and PROCEED. The map has been developed using a Flash application, directly linked to the database, which allows automatic updates. Keywords enriching the research results profiles make filtering available for a better user-friendliness. Each Country Page contains information about research projects in the area of air pollution, chemical pollution, environmental technologies, the title of the research profile and of the expert database with a list of the members of the National Expert and Transnational Expert Groups. Returning to the keywords table if more information is requested by the user the magnifying glass can be clicked and in a new window the CEE Research Results Database will be displayed. In this Database the user can find information regarding the: i) research topic and achieved research result, ii) partnership (information on names and nationalities of the organizations involved), iii) additional information related to dissemination, iv) source of information/references, v) source of funding, vi) project duration, vii) research area and finally viii) research type.
The mapping and processing of information has been performed taking into consideration the results of the Ethics Screening performed before the project start as well as the related Community and national legislation. The procedure described in Section 4 8Ethical Issues) of the Description of Work regarding data collection was duly followed.
To facilitate the matching of policy and industry needs with available research results at the national level, national intersectoral workshops were organised in the CEE project partner countries. Each of these countries hosted two workshops: one targeted at the interlinkages between the researchers and policy makers and the other one at the interlinkages between researchers and industry representatives. In line with the project assumption that the exploitation of research results in these countries is lagging behind when compared to EU-15 countries, the main objective of the workshops was to promote, encourage and support discussion and knowledge exchange between researchers on one hand and policy makers and industry representatives as potential users of research results on the other hand. The workshops followed up on previous project activities and were built around existing research results or undergoing research in the main thematic scopes of the ENVIMPACT project (air pollution, chemical pollution or environmental technologies). Many of the topics discussed were linked with the research results collected earlier in ENVIMPACT. Altogether 14 workshops were organised from July to November 2012 in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Poland, Latvia, Bulgaria and Romania with a total of 249 participants.
During February-March 2013, the consortium organised seven trainings in the CEE countries (one event each in Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Poland, Latvia, Hungary) in the field of dissemination and exploitation of research results. The content of the training modules was tailor-made by the national partner but was built along the following shared pillars:
• Dissemination and exploitation: getting started, basic principles
• Exploring sources of dissemination and collaboration available including CORDIS, poles of excellence,
• databases, registries, initiatives in areas of air pollution, chemical pollution, environmental technologies
• Inventory of good and bad practices on dissemination and exploitation of research results
• Dissemination and exploitation: planning ahead and becoming strategic.
The EU-15 partners and the project coordinator provided the organizers with trainers/lecturers whose knowledge and experience would benefit the events’ audience whereas the hosting partners were given the freedom to supplement the events by including the participation of independent trainers to the agenda – an option that most of the partners took advantage of. The trainings lasted one full day or one and a half days (depending on the organisers’ choice). The target audience consisted of researchers and project managers from both industry and academia. Each training hosted an audience of up to 20 people. Three of the trainings were filmed by a professional recording team and sessions have been uploaded to the ENVIMPACT YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/ENVIMPACT) to serve as a base for further trainings and to educate an even larger audience. Additionally, the presentations from all trainings have been also uploaded to the project website.
As a follow-up activity on the trainings mentioned above, in May-June 2013 a series of online mentoring sessions were organised with the objective of taking advantage of a practical and cost-efficient web conference tool to offer online-assisted mentoring services to CEE researchers. The aim, as with the training sessions, was to improve CEE researchers’ dissemination, exploitation and collaboration potential in transnational RTD collaborations. The e-mentoring sessions were organised online using the Webex conference tool and had a duration of 1½ hours per session. The web conference tool chosen supported the real-time, confidential exchange of oral and written suggestions and comments. The participants had also the opportunity to contact the trainer well in advance so as to pose them questions that they would like to be raised during the e-mentoring event.
In addition to inviting participants of previous trainings and workshops to participate in the e-mentoring sessions, CEE partners also extended the target group by promoting the opportunity in their countries by all means (introductory e-mails, at national trainings, transnational conference, etc.) The online mentoring opportunity was also made highly visible on the opening page of the project website. Altogether ten e-mentoring sessions have been organised, each hosted by one of the trainers who had also participated in the trainings (see above). The sessions had more than 100 registered participants.
Towards the project’s end, when all of the above results were already available, a transnational project conference on successful tools for dissemination in R&D projects was organised on in Brussels. The title of the event was “ENVIMPACT Final Conference: ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH EXPERIENCES ON BEST PRACTICES TOWARD HORIZON 2020”. The aim of the conference was to present current and future tools and trends of dissemination and exploitation of R&D results with a special focus on environmental technologies, air pollution and chemical pollution. Speakers from the European Commission, the ENVIMPACT project, other initiatives (including similar European projects) with an environmental focus and researchers from CEE regions animated the conference and the roundtable discussion. Around 70 participants took place at the event and were involved in the Q/A sessions.
At the beginning of the project a dissemination strategy and action plan were developed. The dissemination strategy focuses on how to reach the target groups of research organisations, industry and policy makers and how to present them the project’s results. In addition, parallel European initiatives, including projects supported by the European Commission, have been mapped for collaboration. With some of these projects, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed.
A project website, including a public area and a restricted area for partners, was set up to serve as the project dissemination platform for the project’s target groups and a communication platform for the consortium partners. The project website is shared with sister project PROCEED. Every four months, a concise e-newsflash with relevant news on environment-related research was prepared and distributed through the consortium partners’ channels.
ENVIMPACT developed and offered to European researchers, policy makers and the interested public a number of innovative measures and procedures, as follows:
• Online CEE R&D map for environmental research showing validated research practices and results, and containing a graphical representation of the distribution of research results in the CEE countries, with overview of the key innovation characteristics in each one of the research areas covered by the project. The database is searchable along several parameters.
• Online audio-visual catalogue of research communication/exploitation tools containing the following sections: list and description of tools, demonstration of tools in practice, samples of „products”.
• National inter-sectoral workshops for researcher/industry and researcher/policy maker interface with the aim of initiating a dialogue and collaboration between the different stakeholders. The workshops presented policy/industry relevant research results and corresponding good practices for communication identified by the ENVIMPACT project and collected recommendations for the efficient inter-sectoral collaboration in the given countries.
• Transnational conference to introduce good practices in environmental research communication and exploitation, presenting the strong knowledge base of dissemination and exploitation tools developed by ENVIMPACT in the context of the upcoming Horizon 2020 programme.
• Interactive trainings for researchers, organised in each CEE partner country, with the aim of helping researchers/research managers to acquire the knowledge, experience and skills necessary for successful dissemination and exploitation procedure in R&D projects.
• E-mentoring by means of a cost effective web conference tool to provide online mentoring services to researchers/research units identified in CEE during the project (notably the trainings) to improve their dissemination, exploitation and collaboration potential.
• Transnational and national expert groups to ensure a professional and careful selection, review and validation of CEE research practices/results, consisting of representatives from academia, industry, NGOs and policy makers, with a strong research background in the areas of air pollution, chemical pollution and environmental technologies.
• Strong links to key networks and initiatives: ENVIMPACT mapped and regularly contacted other European initiatives, especially similar FP projects, for collaboration to facilitate the visibility of CEE research practices and results, to enhance CEE-EU15 collaboration, and also to promote project results.
Potential Impact:
The main impacts expected by the ENVIMPACT consortium are the following:
• Increased visibility of and better access to the R&D results produced in Central and Eastern Europe, both within the CEE region and all over Europe
• Increased collaboration among CEE researchers, as well as between CEE and EU-15 researchers, and, as a result, more successful participation of CEE scientists in FP7 and H2020 projects, thus bridging the gap between the Western and Eastern part of Europe
• More efficient exploitation of resources and cooperative actions currently involving CEE, like European initiatives, technology platforms, projects, databases and networks
• Higher awareness of R&D results by the industry, resulting in faster knowledge transfer, more effective uptake and exploitation of research results originating from new Member States
• Better understanding of the importance and potential proceeds of research by policy makers, encouraging them to use the - frequently alarming - evidence base provided by environmental research, and refer to existing innovative solutions when forming their strategy and working for a more liveable and sustainable environment, as the common interest of an enlarged Europe
• Increased awareness of researchers on the needs of the „users” of their results (industry and governance), and their better understanding that research results should not only be described, but also communicated to the potential users
• Improved communication and dissemination of new and future environmental R&D results by using tailor-made instruments/methods developed by the project, thus promoting the diffusion of knowledge on innovative solutions for a better environment.
The specific information (research results and practices) collected by the project on air pollution, chemical pollution and environmental technologies is displayed in dedicated “CEE R&D maps” pages of the ENVIMPACT website. The ENVIMPACT project, by developing and recommending novel science communication solutions and teaching the researchers to use effectively and purposely the new tools, will contribute to the more effective and open dissemination of scientific results to different sectors of users - academia, industry and policy makers - which presently is a very sensitive issue in the European Research Area.
The dissemination activities of ENVIMPACT were implemented based on the Dissemination Strategy that was produced in the first months of the project. The Dissemination Strategy was based on three main components:
• the website,
• the e-newsflashes,
• the transnational conference in Brussels.
The project website is structured and tailored to the needs of the researchers who are interested in disseminating their research results and of the potential users (academia, policy makers, industry) interested in the utilization of the results showcased. The website also displays, in an easily accessible location, all the results/deliverables of the project. It will enable the public to access reports and outcomes of ENVIMPACT and a full range of R&D and innovation policy related content on environment also beyond the project lifetime.
The following list presents the sections of the public website of the project:
• CEE R&D maps: graphical representation of the distribution of research results in the different CEE countries.
• Knowledge base: this section contains the outputs and results of the project work packages. It covers all the important information produced, collected and disseminated during the project. The main subsections of the knowledge base are:
o Audio-visual catalogue of research communication/exploitation tools: targeted at researchers, research administrators, policy makers and enterprises.
o The recording of the transnational conference, as supplement to the catalogue, made publicly available to provide further references on communication and exploitation practices.
o Recommendations: innovative, simple-to-use, cost-effective tools and solutions to disseminate and utilize new and future research results in the field of air pollution, chemical pollution and environmental technologies for the CEE countries tailored for the academia and policy makers
o Training materials: all the materials developed for the trainings and inter-sectoral workshops are stored here. Training materials are in English, while many of the workshop materials are in the national language.
o Recordings of the trainings: 3 of the trainings for high impact dissemination and exploitation have been recorded and edited. The recordings are available to be used as a basis of further trainings in both CEE and EU-15 countries.
o Document library storing documents related to the project’s scope, as a database record, indexed according to its research area theme(s), countries(s), etc.
For easier availability, the video recordings have also been made available on the ENVIMPACT YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/ENVIMPACT) as explained above.
• Mentoring: online conducted e-mentoring services were offered to researchers to improve their dissemination, exploitation and collaboration potential by providing help during FP7 and the coming H2020 programmes, more specifically in partner search, proposal preparation and project execution.
• News and Events Service: a dynamic, up to date news and events sections pin-pointing relevant events and developments occurring at national, regional and EU level, with the express aim to highlight all new developments in each region have been offered at the project website. This section also includes information about different activities under the present project. The target audience for this service is wider that the three sectors mentioned above and covers the entire environment-interested community in the European Research Area.
• Links: connections to other relevant websites related to existing European intiatives for collaboration to facilitate the visibility of CEE research practices and results (CORDIS, epractice portal, EEN, IPR Helpdesk etc). It is also important to highlight that the project website is shared with the twin project PROCEED, also funded under the same topic ENV.2010.5.1.0-2.
The Dissemination Platform also includes an Extranet (closed area available to project partners only, with levelled access for ENVIMPACT or PROCEED partners, or for both)to facilitate:
• operations management,
• knowledge management,
• planning management,
• quality management,
• management of data and questionnaires.
As another key dissemination activity, a transnational conference on successful tools for dissemination in R&D projects was organised on the 30th of May 2013 in Brussels. The event was titled “Envimpact Final Conference: ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH EXPERIENCES ON BEST PRACTICES TOWARD HORIZON 2020” and was held at the Museum of Natural Sciences in Brussels. The conference was professionally recorded and has been made available in the projects’ video section at http://www.envimpact.eu/dissemination/videos.cfm in the Envimpact youtube channel available after clicking the youtube icon on the header of the website and at http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiZoyY7EuqIpJjiLMIAExig. The presentations delivered in the conference have been made available at http://www.envimpact.eu/publications/conference.cfm
Sustainability of the project:
All materials developed for public access will be kept available until the website is online, at least one year after the project end. After the lifetime of the website the coordinator will dedicate a page of its own website to the project results and upload the most important materials. After the project’s end consortium members will make use of project results and based on any special needs of their clients will provide support and recommendation on how to disseminate and exploit research results.
The identified research results and practices and the completed consensus reports, together with the project website and the action plan for dissemination, contribute to the successful dissemination of research results in CEE countries. The systemic infrastructure to achieve this, namely the R&D map and the audio-visual catalogue of best practices are readily available and they provide an effective means for accessing and sharing this information within the European research community.
List of Websites:
The address of the project public website is: http://envimpact.eu
For further information contact:
Dr. Agnes Szmolenszky, Project Coordinator
Bay Zoltan Nonprofit Ltd. for Applied Research
1116 Budapest
Fehervari ut 130.
e-mail: agnes.szmolenszky@bayzoltan.hu
web: www.bayzoltan.hu