ENVIMPACT

Increasing the impact of Central-Eastern European environment research results through more effective dissemination and exploitation

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'Based on indications from EC and FP7 statistics, the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries participate at 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. CEE researchers have been conducting research in the mentioned fields since the middle of the 20th century, however, their results did not reach – and influence - either the policy makers of their own country, or their academic counterparts in EU-15. 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/FP8 which may lead to innovative solutions for the lasting protection of our environment. Using local contacts, knowledge and the insight of expert groups consisting of relevant academic, industrial/ETP and policy representatives, the innovative environmental research practices and results originating from Central and Eastern Europe will be identified, mapped and made available for the governmental, academic and industrial stakeholders all over Europe. After analysing the presently applied dissemination and exploitation practices of CEE research results (by SWOT analysis), good and bad practices will be presented in an online catalogue. Recommendations will be prepared for the development a taylor-made toolkit. To close the communication gap, CEE researchers will be offered trainings and online mentoring services, based on the recommendations for communication and exploitation of research results. Partners from 7 NMSs will ensure the availability of local research results, while representatives from 4 EU-15 countries will help to identify and match the needs in terms of communication of CEE/EU-15 researchers and will provide the expertise in reaching the relevant stakeholders.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

Central and Eastern Europe research boost

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Decades of mismanagement have resulted in severe damage to the natural environment of CEE countries. Although CEE researchers have conducted research into air and chemical pollution as well as environmental risk since the middle of the 20th century, their work was ignored by national policymakers.

This situation was remedied by the http://www.envimpact.eu/home.cfm (ENVIMPACT) project, whose aim was to increase the involvement of CEE countries in the Environment theme of the EU's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). It is hoped that this collaboration will result in new solutions for the lasting protection of our shared environment.

ENVIMPACT identified innovative environmental research originating from CEE countries based on pre-established selection criteria. The identified practices and results were then validated and disseminated to researchers and stakeholders via the project website. Dissemination and exploitation of practices for environmental research were identified using questionnaires and interviews.

A strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis was used to draw up a list of the most common good practices. These were then ranked to create a list of environmental 'champions'. In addition, project partners created an audiovisual catalogue of best practices in the communication and exploitation of research.

National inter-sectorial workshops were organised in the CEE partner countries in order to bring together researchers, policymakers and industry representatives. Researchers were trained in the best ways for disseminating and exploiting research results using bespoke training modules based on identified needs and project results. Follow-up activities involved a series of online mentoring sessions for CEE researchers using a cost-effective web conference tool.

Results were disseminated with the aid of the project website and every four months an e-newsflash was distributed by the consortium that featured news on environment-related research. A 'project partners only' area on the website dealt with operations and knowledge management, planning, quality and management of data. The transnational project conference on successful tools for research and development held in Brussels in May 2013 comprised the third pillar of ENVIMPACT's dissemination strategy.

Thanks to the project, CEE countries can now contribute to European research as well as help to protect the natural environment.