Dissemination and Exploitation Strategy

HERD project makes significant emphasis on dissemination and exploitation of project results to enhance the impact of the programme and disseminate the information on the project activities and outcomes/outputs to wider public. The HERD consortium consists of 12 leading public and private research universities in Georgia (both Tbilisi and regions), while the overall number of Georgian research universities reaches 32; however it should be mentioned that the research capacity of the rest of the 20 universities is very low having 1 or 2 PhD programs (around 18%). Considering the fact that R&D units are also poorly developed in non-HERD member universities as well, it is of utmost importance to disseminate the information on HERD project widely to attract and encourage other universities as well to implement similar projects. In addition, dissemination activities will also cover non-university research centers/institutions as well.
For this purpose, number of dissemination activities have been developed within this project, and in particular:
4.1. Media Communication Strategy: at the initial stage a special strategy will be developed to ensure the media coverage of the major activities and achievements of the project. The strategy will be implemented after each training session, study visit or any other closed or open event organized within the HERD project.
4.2 HERD project website: the website elaborated within the scope of the project will display the general information on project and its participants, training materials, promotional materials, ministerial decrees, etc.
4.3 Promo materials: for dissemination purposes photo and video materials will be created, regular quarterly newsletters will be produced and published, and podcasts featuring the experiences and impressions of the project participants will be recorded and published.
4.4 Capstone conference: At the final stage of the project a capstone conference will be organized to communicate the project results to direct and indirect beneficiaries and other stakeholders of the project.

It should also be mentioned that the information on the project activities, outcomes and outputs will be also distributed by the individual channels (websites, social media pages, etc.) of the consortium member Georgian and EU partners.