#239 Exploitation - The Implementation Series (16)

Exploitation in EU Projects – From Results to Real Use
With Ana-Marija Špicnagel, Director at IPS Konzalting

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In this episode of my Implementation Series, I’m joined by Ana-Marija Špicnagel from IPS Konzalting for a practical guide to exploitation in EU-funded projects. We begin with the basics: communication tells people what the project is doing, dissemination shares its results, while exploitation is about somebody actually using those results. And that does not necessarily mean selling a product. Exploitation can be commercial, regulatory, educational, organisational or linked to further research, depending on the project and the expected outcome.

From there we move into implementation. How do you identify key exploitable results when many of them may not even be visible at proposal stage? When should you start talking to partners about commercialisation and IP? How do you deal with researchers, SMEs and other consortium partners having very different motivations? And how do you involve stakeholders early enough for their feedback to actually shape the result? Ana-Marija shares a concrete working rhythm for exploitation throughout a project and explains why the real objective is not another Excel sheet or polished deliverable. It is creating something that somebody wants to use — and ideally something that can continue living after the funding stops.

Time codes:

02:03 Guest introduction and fly in

06:13 Defining Exploitation

18:00 Designing for Exploitation from Day One

31:57 The Consortium Challenge

37:13 From Project Results to Real Adoption

58:38 Life After the Project

01:09:07 Reflections and advice

01:10:29 The toughest challenge