Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation for Research Projects
We plan and run the communication, dissemination and exploitation of research projects: the whole work package, or a defined part of it. We work with research consortia, universities and institutes, either as a partner inside the consortium or on commission. What you get is a strategy that survives review, channels that are run for the whole project rather than just launched, films and formats produced by our own team, and a documented account of what the project achieved.
Climate Media Factory was founded in 2011 as a spin-off of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf, and one principle has held ever since: scientists and media professionals work on the same content. That is why a figure gets questioned before it is animated, and why the people who argue about the science are the ones who write the script. We have worked in six EU-funded consortia and for research projects with partners such as the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (Potsdam-Institut für Klimafolgenforschung), Forschungszentrum Jülich, the Technical University of Munich (Technische Universität München), IIASA, Imperial College London, the Tyndall Centre at the University of East Anglia, the London School of Economics and BOKU Vienna.
What we deliver
Proposal support. The communication, dissemination and exploitation section of your proposal, including the work package description, the task structure and a budget figure that holds. Where the call asks for it, the societal readiness and stakeholder engagement elements as well.
Work package leadership. Strategy and periodic reports as formal deliverables, schedule, guidelines the other partners can actually follow, KPI monitoring, and the coordination of everything the consortium contributes.
Project identity and channels. Logo, visual identity and a style guide binding for all partners; website and social media accounts set up and then actually maintained; deposits and metadata in repositories such as Zenodo.
Materials and events. Flyers, brochures, posters and roll-ups, from content through design to print. Project video, interview films with researchers and stakeholders, short documentaries, explainer animations, and short cuts for social media. Produced by our own team, from script to subtitles.
Outreach and exploitation. Policy briefs, events and syntheses for decision-makers. The exploitation strategy and plan, the route from key results to products, business cases and follow-up funding, and then the work of keeping the consortium on that route, including through the Commission's own services such as the Horizon Results Booster.
How we work
Coming in before submission. We join consortia while the proposal is still being written, either as work package lead, with strategy, reporting, coordination of all partners' communication activities and a work package structure that survives review, or as a partner for defined tasks inside someone else's work package, usually the audiovisual part: films, animations, interview series, or an interactive tool that a deliverable calls for. Either way you get support to strengthen the proposal.
Coming in later, or on a single commission. For projects already running, and for institutes, agencies and foundations working outside a consortium: briefing, strategy, production, hand-over.
What we need from you. A short overview, the relevant links and documents, and a timeline with a few milestones. We go through it and then work out with you how the collaboration should be cut.
Selected work
RethinkAction
Horizon 2020 (2021–2025)
We led the work package for communication and dissemination, for a consortium of thirteen partners in nine countries coordinated by Fundación CARTIF. We wrote the strategy, ran the project's channels for four years and documented the research process on film: 13 video interviews, seven short documentations of stakeholder work, more than 1,000 social media posts.
As work package lead we also planned and coordinated what the other partners contributed, among it the project's presence at COP28, COP29, EURESFO 2024, the European Urban Resilience Forum, ECCA 2025 and Climate Week NYC, and a MOOC of 29 videos developed under ICLEI's lead.
I-CHANGE
Horizon 2020 (2021–2025)
We were a beneficiary in a consortium coordinated by Fondazione CIMA and produced the audiovisual work of the communication work package: the project film, five animations, ten interviews, and one documentary for each of three citizen science Living Labs in Amsterdam, Genoa and Bologna, directed, shot, recorded and edited by our own team. The Genoa film was selected for the Babul Eco Film Festival, the Fest5 International Film Festival and the Goethe-Institut's Science Film Festival.
We also designed the project's serious game Our Climate Story, developed with KAJO-Services and CNR-IMATI. The project had set a target of 8,500 video views in total; the channel reached 9,297, and more than 250 hours of I-CHANGE content were watched.
→ Documentary films: Capturing the power of Citizen Science
→ Serious Game: Our Climate Story
3FOR, Foresight For Forests
Velux Stiftung (2023–2027)
We are the communication partner in a project led by the chair of Land Surface-Atmosphere Interactions at the Technical University of Munich, which projects how European forests develop under different climate scenarios. We are responsible for the communication and dissemination strategy and for everything the project puts in public: the visual identity, the project website, and the channels, LinkedIn and YouTube, where our documentary Forests for the Future, filmed at a stakeholder workshop in the Brandenburg state ministry, is published alongside interviews with project partners.
→ CMF partners with TUM on forest management project
→ New film for 3FOR: Forests for the Future
RenoVisor
Horizon Europe (2025–2029)
We are a beneficiary in a twelve-partner consortium coordinated by Forschungszentrum Jülich. Within the dissemination and communication team we contribute the audiovisual work, the project film, interviews with the researchers, short cuts for social media, and we lead the project's exploitation: writing the exploitation strategy and plan, and then guiding the consortium along them. There is a clear intention in this consortium to take the results to market rather than leave them behind as deliverables.
We also build the project's decision tools. That part is described under Interactive Tools.
→ Partner in RenoVisor: we build the renovation decision tools
Who we work with
European research consortia; universities and research institutes, among them the Technical University of Munich, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Imperial College London; German federal research programmes and ministries; private research foundations such as the Swiss Velux Stiftung; European innovation networks such as Climate-KIC and ICLEI; and international bodies outside the European funding system, such as the Climate Vulnerable Forum.
Who leads this work
Dr. Bernd Hezel, CEO. Physicist, formerly researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and visiting professor at the Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf. He leads strategy and scientific accuracy on these projects and is the person you talk to.
Frequently asked questions
Can you join our consortium as a partner, or do you work as a subcontractor?
Both. We are happy to join a consortium as a beneficiary, and we have also worked as a subcontractor and service provider for Horizon and other research projects.
Do you write the communication section of the proposal?
Yes. We have contributed to many proposals, both in designing and wording the work package and in the methodological sections, and most of them were funded.
Do you also build the project website?
Yes. We have built and maintained websites for many projects, along with the other channels a project needs: social media, YouTube, and repository deposits.
Do you produce the material yourselves, or do you commission it?
Most of it we produce ourselves, from script to subtitles. Some tasks go to specialists in our network where that is the better route to the result. In both cases the concept, the direction and the final cut stay with us.
Which languages do you produce in?
In-house we work in English and German. We have also overseen productions in Spanish, French, Arabic and many other languages.
Do you work with partners outside Europe?
Yes. We have worked with partners in the Middle East, in several African countries, in South America, Asia, the Caribbean and the Pacific: coordinating film production on location, co-creating media products, and filming on site ourselves.
Cases in this area
Talk to Bernd Hezel about your project: hezel@climatemedia.de
