Work
Package 06

The CA&EU will be responsible for producing and implementing an Internal Communication Plan. The Plan will provide a clear roadmap for consistent communication among the structures and employees, defining the communication goals and needs, audiences, core messages, channels, and evaluation and monitoring strategies. A particular attention will be given to ensure that employees are informed about the vision, mission and objectives of the CoE, as well as training opportunities, flagship initiatives, and key research and innovation achievements. Likewise, there will be streamlined dissemination of strategic plans, guidelines, and activity reports of the CoE. The CA&EU will work with IT Officers to implement and provide training regarding online tools for internal communication, including for instance collaborative platforms, instant messaging and video conference tools, and project management tools among others. Monitoring and evaluation will be carried out regularly, and adequate corrective measures will be taken when needed.

To assure consistent and effective application of Communication, Dissemination & Exploitation (CD&E) procedures across all participants and activities, a CD&E Plan will be designed and produced. The aim is to have an integrated approach that strategically targets these activities and that is fully embedded in the work plan, thereby reaching out to society and showing the benefits of BIOPOLIS R&I, and contributing to maximise their societal and economic impact. The CD&E Plan main objectives are: (i) To raise regional, national and international awareness, recognition and attractiveness of BIOPOLIS R&I, promoting its areas of excellence; (ii) To disseminate BIOPOLIS’s research and innovation, enabling others to use and take up results, and thus maximising its impact; (iii) To identify relevant audiences, markets and business segments in order to create and foster concrete exploitation of research results; and (iv) to contribute to fund raising and the sustainability of the CoE. The Plan will detail the activities to be carried out, including for instance the partner responsibilities in their implementation, the calendar, and the models of implementation. The CD&E Plan will be completed within the first year of the project (M12), and it will be reviewed and updated continuously.

The focus of communication will be to inform about and promote BIOPOLIS and its results and achievements, through the implementation of a variety of activities targeted at multiple audiences, including: (i) Define a corporate identity (logo/brand) to get people to recognize the CoE along the years; (ii) Establish long term relationships with the media and writing storylines about BIOPOLIS activities that can raise journalists interest on its research and innovation outcomes; (iii) Create a BIOPOLIS website, which will portrait information on its strategies and achievements, research and corporate partners, among others; (iv) Issue a regular electronic newsletter with updates on BIOPOLIS activities; (v) Create brochures and flyers about BIOPOLIS; (vi) Support the participation of BIOPOLIS researchers in workshops and seminars targeted at non-specialised publics; (vii) Develop expositions and activities for the general public, through the partnership already established with the Biodiversity Gallery of the Natural and Science Museum of the University of Porto, and the Serralves Foundation, among others; (viii) Communicate BIOPOLIS to schools through printed materials and seminars, targeting at both teachers and school children; (ix) Promote citizen science and other forms of citizen engagement, through for instance online platforms such as eBird and iNaturalist, and linking to research projects; (x) Organise events specifically for stakeholders, whereby BIOPOLIS and its achievements can be communicated in a more targeted and effective way; (xi) encourage publication of non-technical papers to document research results with relevance to the wider society;and (xii) Use online media, including You Tube and other platforms, to communicate BIOPOLIS to younger people, involving for instance the production of small films and regular feeds in social media. The success of these activities will be monitored over time, including a close record of all activities, and the measurement of their impacts using for instance press clipping and media monitoring.

The focus of dissemination activities will be on describing results of BIOPOLIS R&I and ensure that they are available for others to use. The targets include the scientific community, as well as stakeholders that can benefit from BIOPOLIS R&I results, such as the corporate partners, policymakers, the organisms of the public administration at national, regional and local levels, and NGOs. A variety of activities will be implemented, including: (i) Publication of open access scientific papers in international journals as well as open access books, thus making the results widely available to the scientific community; An extremely important aspect in the communication and dissemination strategy of the BIOPOLIS Center of Excellence will be the editorial scientific component inserted in the research centre. The name “Arte e Ciência” was chosen for the BIOPOLIS Publishing House in order to give scope to the editorial line that will always be based on the scientific area, and should have a constant dialogue with the art that science also transmits – whether in illustrations, architectures, literatures, etc. All books produced by BIOPOLIS researchers or edited by BIOPOLIS will be published by Arte e Ciência to have an aesthetically similar overall view and in order to be easily recognized by the public as a BIOPOLIS registered mark. Examples of previous works include Biodiversidade de Angola, a book published in open access, in an English version on the Springer website and in a Portuguese version on the website of the UNESCO Life on Land Chair held by BIOPOLIS. The next books to be published under the aegis of BIOPOLIS include the “The Poisonous Serpents of Angola” by BIOPOLIS researcher Luís Ceríaco, “The Ecology of the Railroad” from BIOPOLIS researchers Luís Borda-de-água, Pedro Beja, Rafael Barrientos and Henrique Miguel Pereira, or “The Biomas of Angola” by the researcher BIOPOLIS Brian Huntley. (ii) Presentation of results in scientific and technical seminars, congresses and workshops, with financial support awarded for young and outstanding researchers; (iii) Develop and Implement a Knowledge Management System for sharing and dissemination of knowledge, materials, methods and results among partners; (iv) Develop and Implement a Data Management System; (v) Identify and create a database of stakeholders and other potential users; (vi) Develop a stakeholder engagement programme, including the organization of meetings and other activities of potential users; (vii) organise sessions for decision makers and funding sources (public and private) to outline the significance and impact of R&I results; and (viii) organise demonstration events where the practical outcomes of research and innovation can be shown to and tested by stakeholders. The success of these activities will be monitored over time, involving a database of the scientific production and other dissemination activities, using indicators to be defined in the CD&E Plan.

The exploitation activities will be implemented according to the guidelines established by the CD&E Plan, and will represent a follow-up of the dissemination activities. This component is considered critical for the sustainability of the CoE (see WP8), as it will underpin the potential revenues related to Intellectual Property Rights and Licensing of BIOPOLIS Innovation (T8.3), and the creation of new businesses and spin-offs (T8.5). The focus will thus be on promoting the concrete use of R&I, both in commercial applications and to support decisions and management strategies by, e.g., policymakers, wildlife managers, landscape managers, and other stakeholders. Therefore, the target will be on stakeholders that can make concrete use of the obtained R&I results, including the corporate partners, organisms of the public administration, the spin-offs emerging
from the CoE activity, and NGOs, among others. A variety of activities will be implemented, including: (i) identification and characterisation of the different types of valuable and exploitable results, and their potential user groups; (ii) identification and characterisation of the most appropriate exploitation routes for the expected key exploitable results; (iii) definition of an internal policy of intellectual property rights and protection of exploitable results through patenting (T8.3); and (iv) definition of how results will be exploited, including for instance the creation of spin-offs or partnering with extant corporations (T8.5); among others. These activities will be monitored over time, using indicators to be defined in the CD&E Plan, which may include number of patents, licencing of IP rights, commercial revenue from the results of BIOPOLIS R&I, and use of results in the formulation or improvement of public policies and strategies. For results that will have been co-produced with UM, these activities will be coordinated with the relevant services of UM and linked third parties.