Welcome back! This is the second and final part of our blog series, where we go over questions raised during our communication-focused webinar on maximising impact in Horizon Europe projects last June.
If you haven’t read Part I yet, feel free to check it out here—though it’s not required to enjoy this post. And if you missed any of our webinars, don’t worry! You can still access all the recordings on our website. In today’s post, we’ll explore essential Tools and Resources, dive into Project Proposal and Implementation tips, and share some Practical Examples to enhance your Horizon Europe projects.
Let’s jump right in!
Section 3: Tools and Resources
1. Do you have a suggestion for applications that could be used to track metrics for the social media and website KPIs?
To monitor website engagement in our project, we have mostly used Google Analytics, a popular and user-friendly tool that allows for the tracking of various data, from the number of unique website visitors to the countries these users have accessed the website from (which can show the level of interest and engagement of your audience to the project, especially if your project is focused on a particular region). You may consider switching to Matomo, a tool that ensures GDPR compliance, with users having full control over their data.
To track social media numbers, we generally use the analytics feature that each platform provides, as it doesn’t involve any additional costs, yet it is detailed enough to showcase your audiences’ engagement with your posts. If looking for an external platform that does the trick, we recommend using Hootsuite, a tool that can also be used to schedule content in advance, Buffer, and SEMrush or Ahrefs for broader digital marketing analytics.
2. What are the best tools for social media managers to stay organized?
We use Trello to coordinate with our communication, project management, and design teams. Trello helps us streamline tasks, set priorities (depending on urgency) and maintain effective communication. Additionally, we use custom templates to keep track of our activities, which you can find on our website: Templates | Europa Media Trainings.
You can also resort to external services and applications that offer automation, such as:
Hootsuite: Schedule and manage social media posts across multiple platforms.
Buffer: Plan, schedule, and track the performance of your posts.
Zapier: Automate workflows by connecting various apps and services.
3. Where do we find standard numbers/estimations of number of people reached by social media etc.? Are there average estimations? Which documents?
Standard estimations can often be found in social media analytics reports or industry benchmarks. Platforms like Hootsuite, Sprout Social, and reports from organisations like We Are Social provide such data. You can find plenty of insightful reports and articles on the subject online, such as this one: Global social media statistics research summary 2024 [May 2024] (smartinsights.com)
However, when it comes to deciding your KPIs for your project, it is important to pay attention to internal topics and ask yourself questions such as:
- How technical is my project? Will it be easier to engage a general/bigger audience, or shall I focus on a more niche target?
- What is the reach of my consortium and their channels/networks?
4. Can you recommend platform where we can find partners for dissemination?
CORDIS: The database of previously funded R&I projects. You can filter for specific topics and then you can check project websites and see who the dissemination partner has been. You can also look for results here – search for dissemination plan deliverable, read them and if you like them, check who created the result.
Google: May be that easy as putting “Dissemination leader in Horizon Europe”
LinkedIn Groups: For professional networking.
Science communication networks: Experts and relevant associations would normally be part of science communication networks.
However, you also have an excellent option for dissemination & communication partners right here! We have been involved in EU-funded projects, in various roles, including dissemination and communication work package leaders, for over 25 years now. We have extensive experience in successfully overseeing all dissemination, exploitation, and communication activities, on various topics ranging from sustainability, resilience and crisis management (Geonardo) to social sciences, biodiversity, agri-food and entrepreneurship (Europa Media Non-Profit). Feel free to reach out if you wish to work on a proposal together!
5. Is the cost for setting up a website eligible? If so, under which cost category does it fall?
Yes, the cost for setting up a website is eligible in a Horizon Europe project. It typically falls under the "Other direct costs" category. This category covers costs directly linked to the project but not classified under personnel, travel, or subcontracting. Setting up a website is considered a necessary communication and dissemination activity, making it a legitimate expense under this category as long as it directly supports the project's objectives and is properly justified in the proposal.
Section 4: Proposal Proposal & Development
6. C&D plan is not required at the proposal stage. What are some of the things you suggest adding in terms of C&D in the proposal?
Actually, the 2.2 section of a Horizon Europe proposal (Measures to maximise impact) is a preliminary version of what will be your Dissemination, Communication & Exploitation Plan. This section can include your target groups, the tools & channels you want to use to reach these target groups, key messages that will form the basis of your activities, and a list of D&C KPIs that you have set out, ideally upon consultation with partners and the communication officers in your company, if any.
7. What advice do you have for advancing efforts in this area when the coordinator figure is focused on the technical, and not so concerned about the Comm/Dissemination aspects of HE projects?
To ensure the project coordinator’s support in boosting dissemination & communication efforts, you could:
- Get them involved in your work and assign clear tasks with deadlines attached
- Conduct regular meetings with a focus on dissemination & communication activities where you assess together the current status of your KPIs and decide on the next steps to advance them
- Showcase successful data-backed stories from your dissemination & communication activities (a social media campaign that got a lot of traction, an event with a bigger-than-estimated number of participants) to boost motivation and help them realise D&C KPIs are equally important 😊
If all else fails, explain to the project coordinator that everyone has a contractual obligation to contribute to dissemination and communication efforts – failing to do so will cost each partner and will hinder the medium and long-term impact of the project.
8. Thanks for the great presentation! How would you write engagement with sister projects in the proposal? As a separate task in the DCE work package?
Yes, engagement with sister projects is often a crucial element in Horizon Europe proposals, particularly in the Dissemination, Communication, and Exploitation (DCE) work package. You can write it as a separate task within the DCE work package to ensure it gets the attention and resources it needs. Make sure to include the objective, description, related deliverables and person-months allocated, if you wish to be thorough!
9. What share of the budget is the D&C part?
In a Horizon Europe project, the part of the total person-months allocated for Dissemination and Communication typically ranges from 10% to 15% of the total staff effort. The actual budget depends on the KPIs and activities needed. Projects with significant public engagement or communication components may allocate a larger portion, while smaller or more technical projects might allocate less. You may allocate to some advertising and workshop organisation as well as attendance to conferences or plan with major media appearance, two conferences organised with 500 people attending etc. The difference in costs may be huge. It's essential to tailor the budget allocation to the specific needs and goals of the project, ensuring sufficient resources are dedicated to effectively disseminate and communicate project results.
Section 5: Practical Examples and Resources
10. In the red lines exercise, should we always use Time, Target, Money, etc., as limitation categories, or were those just examples?
Those are just examples. You can adapt the limitation categories to fit the specific challenges and constraints of your project. Other categories might include resources, expertise, stakeholders, regulatory considerations... But let’s take another look at it!
The "Red Lines" exercise helps individuals set effective, specific KPIs by defining the scope of their goals through five key limitations or guidelines. This method ensures that KPIs are realistic, targeted, and aligned with the overall objectives.
Instructions:
Choose a General Topic or Goal: Place this goal in the center of the pentagon.
Set Limitations in the Vertices: Depending on the chosen approach, fill in the five tags in the vertices with relevant limitations or guidelines.
Some approaches:
Approach 1: Time, Location, Scope, Target, Money
Approach 2: SMART Formula
Approach 3: The "What," Why, How, When, Where, Who
Remember, these are just some examples, for an exercise of visualisation. This is by no means a mathematical formula and more of a trick that might help you get started, but you should find out what works best for you. If you decide to go for this exercise, don’t be afraid to experiment with it and tailor it to your needs!
You can access the recording of the webinar where we go over some real examples.
11. Can you please place the Red Lines exercise to Free learning materials on your platform?
As of right now, we will not be uploading this particular exercise to our platform. You can always take a look at the recording of the video to remember how it is done and try doing it yourself. We have attached an image that you can use in this post, but it would be easier if you created it yourself on Power Point or any other tool, using the shapes tool (pentagon + circles).
12. Can you please place the Build your own personas exercise to Free learning materials on your platform?
We don’t follow a specific template but create our own personas with different characteristics depending on the project and its characteristics. A customer persona exercise can be as simple as:
Name and picture
General description
Goals, Frustrations and Motivations
You can add more fields to this, like a quote, pains and gains, channels and key messages (which agents and channels influence this person?), etc. You can find plenty of free resources and templates, even on platforms like Canva or Miro. Just type “Customer Persona Template” on Google and find the one that better adapts to your needs.
13. We are struggling to reach students for our summer school, which is one deliverable of our DUT project, any suggestions?
One way to go about this would be to map relevant universities and faculty departments within your region of focus and send personalised emails to the deans/other relevant contacts with invitations for them to encourage their students to join your summer school. From our experience, universities are usually eager to promote such initiatives to their students. Other options would be: creating a targeted paid campaign on social media (e.g. paid advertising on Meta is not prohibitively expensive and younger generations still use Instagram extensively), using testimonials from summer school alumni (a great idea would be through a video format, as algorithms favour this type of content – the video can be maximum 1 min long, with a CTA from previous participants on why students should join, if they get any benefits such as ECTS etc.), hosting an informational webinar where prospective participants can find out more, have their questions answered etc., run promotions where students can win a prize for attending.
14. Thank you for sharing with us, it was very lively and interesting! Q: when having to track down all the C&D related events happening within the consortium (partners going to conferences, giving talks, etc.) we find it very hard to receive this info from consortium partners: they do quite a lot of things but don't circle back with the comm team unless we chase them... some suggestions?
We’ve experienced this issue as well in the past. What we did to tackle it was to:
- Set regular meetings with the consortium (e.g. every 3 months) to discuss both past and future events; this way, you will know which events they attended in the past months, but also where they go next (and if they need any support, dissemination materials etc.) from your side.
- Send emails at the beginning of each month to remind them of their responsibility to share this information with you
- Create a list of future events in which partners will take part and keep track of it; if necessary, contact directly the partner involved to ask them for this information.
15. What is the difference between citizen/civil society in reporting?
While “citizen” refers to the general public (people, individuals), the term “civil society” includes groups and organisations, such as NGOs, communities, advocacy organisations, etc.
16. Nice video in the previous slide! What program did you use to make it?
This is the video in question, and the program we used was Adobe Animations.
That wraps up our Q&A on Communication Strategies for Horizon Europe projects. We hope you found these insights helpful and that they spark new ideas for your own work. We’d love to hear your thoughts or any additional questions you have—feel free to share them in the comments section below!
