SKILLS4Water aims to encourage participation and civic engagement in different project phases through various means.
Firstly, the project includes a needs assessment analysis, which involves stakeholders from various sectors, including
academia, industry, and civil society. This ensures that the project is informed by the needs and priorities of the wider
community, and that stakeholders are actively engaged in shaping the project’s direction and outcomes.
In addition, the project includes training and capacity-building activities for young water professionals and teaching staff,
which will empower them to become more engaged and active citizens in their communities. By equipping them with the
necessary skills and knowledge, the project aims to enable them to take a more active role in shaping water management
practices and policies in their respective countries.

Furthermore, the project includes the development of a community hub, which will enable defined target groups to connect
and collaborate with one another throughout the project’s implementation. This online platform will facilitate the exchange of ideas, best practices, and experiences, and will enable stakeholders to contribute to the project’s objectives and outcomes.
Overall, SKILLS4Water aims to foster a culture of active citizenship and civic engagement by involving stakeholders in
different project phases and equipping young water professionals with the skills and knowledge necessary to take a more
active role in their communities. It also empowers Europe with the future generation which is equipped with the necessary
skills to create a Water-Smart-Social and contribute significantly to EU Green Deal.

Objectives:

The main objectives of WP5 are to mainstream the results of the project and to identify mechanisms to foster the selfsustainability
and valorisation of project’s results beyond the funding period. To achieve these objectives, ACEEU, as the
WP leader, will integrate all project partners and its own wide-reaching network into all the activities related to
communication, exploitation and sustainability. Such objective is composed of four specific objectives:
O5.1. To develop and implement a comprehensive outreach and engagement strategy that identifies the needs and
preferences of the stakeholders and generate value for the relevant internal and external target groups of the project.
O5.2. To set the communication and dissemination channels, as well as to establish a permanent update on the
advancements, developments and results of the project, aiming at leveraging existing communication channels and
networks to raise awareness about SKILLS4Water and its objectives.
O5.3. To set a sustainability strategy that collects the vision developed by the partners on how to sustain and expand the
impacts of the project after the funding period.
O5.4. To disseminate the project results and engage the potential users of the results of the project in a final project
conference to reach young water professionals and students, industry experts and practitioners, academics and
researchers, policymakers and regulators, and businesses and investors.
The four specific objectives will be developed in each of the activities that compose WP5, trying each objective to the
specific outputs of the project. Additionally, the transversal nature of WP5 allows the gathering of continuous feedback to
inform the establishment of a robust sustainability strategy.

Activities:

The following activities are planned in WP5:
A5.1. Developing a dissemination, exploitation and communication plan
This activity aims to develop and implement a comprehensive outreach and engagement strategy The activity involves:
– Characterising the target groups, their interests and needs.
– Selecting the suitable channels and the strategies.
– Writing a comprehensive plan for communication and dissemination activities setting targets to reach.
– Peer reviewing and approving the plan for all the partners.
A5.2. Development of Project website and Social Media Content Calendar
This activity aims at setting the communication and dissemination channels, as well as establishing a permanent update on
the advancements, developments and results of the project. This activity involves:
– Developing a suitable visual identity of the project.
– Programming a website with the information of the project and updating it continuously.
– Setting a blog and social media calendar with distributed responsibilities among the partners.
– Following-up the website and social media engagement.
A5.3. Creating a sustainability strategy
This activity aims at setting a sustainability strategy that collects the vision of the partners. This activity involves:
– Developing a table of contents with the key elements the strategy must include and validate it with the partners.
– Conducting a workshop to collect the partners’ views on the possible pathways to enhance the impact of the project.
– Writing a final report presenting the key pathways to follow up the project.
A5.4. Organizing the Final Project Conference
This activity aims at disseminating the project results and engaging the potential users. This activity involves:
– Developing guidelines for the event.
– Distributing dissemination tasks for the partners and identifying external participants.
– Executing the event in a suitable venue.
Explain how this activity is going to help reach the WP objectives.
Each of the four activities will contribute to the objective of WP5 in different ways:
A5.1. Developing a Dissemination, exploitation and communication plan: this activity will contribute to delimitate the target
audiences and to set a clear strategy to follow for engaging them by distributing responsibilities among the partners.
A5.2. Creating the Project website and social media content calendar: This activity will contribute to interact and engage
external audiences, which will allow to consolidate a network of stakeholders related to the project. This network will have a
tremendous impact in the dissemination activities, as well as in creating synergies for developing sustainability pathways
after the funding period of the project.
A5.3. Creating a sustainability strategy: This activity builds on the feedback of the communication and dissemination
activities, in the developed network of contacts of the project, and on the expectations developed by the partners during the project. This plan will contribute to envision clear pathways to follow after the end of the project.
A5.4. Organising the Final Project Conference: This activity contributes to the dissemination and sustainability of the project
by disseminating the outputs of the project with the target audiences, engaging the network of interested stakeholders
related to the project, and creating new synergies for the project partners.
In sum, the communication and dissemination activities were strategically merged with the sustainability plan to leverage the
feedback and the network consolidated during the life span of the project.
Describe the expected results of the activities.
The expected results of the activities are
D5.1. A Dissemination, exploitation and communication plan: this plan will be a document that identifies the target groups
and their needs. According to this analysis, the plan will set goals and identify the main channels to disseminate internetbased
activities (website and blog), media-based activities (social networks), face to face activities (events). With these
elements, the plan will establish the guidelines for dissemination and the mechanisms for following-up and reporting, an
action plan
D5.2. A Website and a Social media content calendar: The website will be the central point where the information of the
project and the blog updates will be centralized. All the materials for dissemination will be available for downloading. This
website will host a blog where the updates of the project, information of the partners and relevant news will be posted.
Additionally, the social media content calendar will present an overview of the upcoming social media posts, organized by
date, responsible, the corresponding link and the number of audiences reached.
D5.3. A sustainability strategy: the sustainability strategy will be a document that collects the consensus of the partners on
their views regarding the future of the project. This document will introduce the feedback that the project gets in the
dissemination activities, the characterization of the networks reached, the possible outreach of the results, and three
sustainability pathways which are strategies for sustaining or enhancing the project after the funding period.
D5.4. Conference proceedings: the proceeding is the result of the Final Project Conference of SKILLS4Water and will
compile the diverse contributions presented in the event. This document summarizes the results and compiles the internal
and external contributions to the project. It will serve as a closing material that will report all the achievements.

Deliverables

The main results of WP5 are: D5.1. Communication plan and outreach strategy, D5.2. Website and social media profiles,
D5.3. Sustainability Strategy, D5.4. Final Project conference report. The Dissemination, exploitation and communication
plan will be created at the beginning of the SKILLS4Water project including dissemination strategy, communication
channels and KPIs which should be reached. The website will be designed and regularly updated by H2O-People
containing the information about the SKILLS4Water project, main project results, events, and dissemination activities.
Social media profiles (e.g. Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and LinkedIn) will be created for reaching the target groups.
Website and social profiles will be created not later than M3 (November 2023). The Sustainability Strategy build on the
feedback collected from the communication and dissemination activities, the Community Hub (D4.4), as well as in a
workshop conducted during the third face-to-face project meeting with the consortium partners to identify the key
opportunities for further exploiting and sustaining the project results. In this strategy, the partners, first, will present how the
results of the project will be embedded in their own institutions and, second, will look for external sources of funding for
enhancing and upgrading the results of the project. The final project conference report collects the participations of experts
in the frame of the SKILLS4Water project. These contributions will present diverse views on how to build a more sustainable
and resilient water future in Europe. The final result closes the project by bringing the stakeholders together, socializing the
results of the project, and envisioning the future of SKILLS4Water. Both results are key for closing the project with a clear
view on future developments. With these results, the consortium will be ready for enhancing the collaborations based on the
data, views, recommendations and enhanced network developed in WP5.

Community Hub;
Sustainability Strategy;
Synergies other projects;
Reports of events.