FCH JU Grant Agreement number: 325368 Project acronym: DeMStack Project title: Understanding the Degradation Mechanisms of a High Temperature PEMFC Stack and Optimization of the Individual Components Deliverable 6.3: Plan for the use and dissemination of the foreground Period covered: 01/05/2013-31/10/2014 Name, title and organisation of the scientific representative of the project's coordinator: Dr. Stylianos Neophytides Stadiou str., Platani, Rio-Patras, 26504, Greece Tel: 0030 2610 965 265 Fax: 0030 2610 965 223 E-mail: neoph@iceht.forth.gr Project website address: http://demstack.iceht.forth.gr 1
Dissemination plan The objective is to identify and organize the activities to be performed in order to promote the widest dissemination of knowledge generated through the project. This aim will be accomplished by using several dissemination materials and additionally through direct information on targeted events. The strategy for the dissemination foresees and includes the following main activities as the way to achieve the aforementioned objectives: - Creation of a project web site, - Announcements on web pages of SMEs and RTD performers, - Creation of links between the project web site and those of the different project partners, - Announcements and articles about project results in scientific journals and general media, - Participation at conferences and workshops with demonstration of the project s results, - Other events to broaden the knowledge and the usage of the project s results. Identification of opportunities and target groups A mapping of specific opportunities is made in order to support the dissemination activities. Therefore, an initial search looked for: (1) obtaining contacts and opportunities for collaboration, (2) target groups for dissemination and (3) post project demonstration and development of related activities. The target groups identified for this project are: - General public - Academia, scientific experts - Other relevant research projects: The participation of project partners in other relevant projects offers the opportunity for establishment of quick links among parties through common participants. - Industry other that the companies participating in the consortium - Other organizations (for example the European Space Agency, ESA) Dissemination material An important stage in the context of this project Dissemination Plan is the production of material. Examples of dissemination material include: - Project logo - Presentation Template - One consolidated presentation on the aims and scope of the project - Deliverable template - Mailing lists including all partners as appropriate Generic guidelines for dissemination The following is a generic set of guidelines for the dissemination events and material, providing instructions about how to proceed when carrying out dissemination activities: - Once a partner receives information on an up-coming conference, workshop, etc., the concerned partner should inform the consortium of the upcoming event by sending an email to the mailing list. When presentations are made externally, the presentation should be sent to the consortium by email for comments and approval prior to the event. - All publicly held activities should present their material in electronic form to the rest of the consortium - For the avoidance of doubt, a partner would not be able to publish Foreground or Background of another partner, even if such Foreground or Background is amalgamated with the partner s Foreground, without the other partner s prior written approval. For the avoidance of doubt, the mere absence of an objection to publish results is not considered as an approval, but in order not to indefinitely delay publications, the partner asked by another partner to accept/deny a 2
publication involving some of its Foreground/Background should provide a written instruction within 30 days after receipt of the notice. Instruments and media for dissemination activities The main instruments and media which will be used fall within the following areas: - Events - Publications - E-Media Events refer to both collaboration and dissemination and include participation in: o Presentations at conferences o Demonstration of the prototype to the potential end-users o Exhibitions, trade fairs o Networking sessions o Specialized events Publications refer to both electronic and printed media. They include: o Short articles published on the Internet or in journals and relevant magazines o Newsletters and other information material produced by the partners o Papers published and presented in conferences E-media is primarily related with the project s website and the services made available there. Presentations Performing DeMStack related presentations in various events is a task that might be carried out by every partner, for own exploitation and publicity. The partner must comply with the following: - The presentation should indicate the Demstack logo - The presentation should identify the funding instrument of the project - Presentations should conform to the Grant Agreement, Consortium Agreement and EU rules for publications - Existing presentations can (and should) be reused, after publicly notifying their creators and obtaining approval for any modifications - Non-public material should by no means be included in the presentation - Presentations should be made internally available to DeMStack. As for such an end, the partners will use the private partner s area in the DeMStack website. Publications Publications can be categorized as public relations and scientific. The first category usually refers to documents that abstractly cover topics addressed by the project, while the second one to the widely known scientific world publications. In general, the following guidelines apply to the project s publications: - Scientific publications must be announced to the consortium - All partners that are being involved in the actual work that a publication is based on should be consulted prior to its announcement - Publications should conform to the EU rules for publications - All publications should refer to Demstack project as their primary supporting action - Publications should explicitly respect the Grant Agreement and the Consortium Agreement Website Internet presence is a must for any serious marketing strategy nowadays. This project has a specific Internet site: http://demstack.iceht.forth.gr, where information, documentation and news about the project are updated regularly. The website is an important dissemination tool. The user friendly website contains a general description of the project, description of all partners including links to their website, a news area (including important dates, a regularly updated list of publications and conference publications etc) and contact details. For public communication purposes, non 3
sensitive information was shared on this public web site. Very importantly, there is also an area only accessible to the registered consortium members and EC representatives restricted by secure access control. Sensitive information are included in this area, as for example the presentations and minutes from each meeting, the reports etc. Up to today, dissemination of the information to the scientific community is being done through the publication of selected information from the experiments and data analysis of the project in high level publications in international peer-reviewed journals. The information is also posted in the project website. The website is regularly updated and includes news, important dates, events and other relative information. Furthermore, the results of the ongoing work are periodically presented at scientific conferences for the more efficient dissemination to the scientific community. All these actions are reported in Deliverable 6.1 and will continue for the whole duration of the project and possibly even after its end. Exploitation plan The three SMEs involved ensure fast exploitation of the results through the improvement of their technology. The Exploitation plan will gather all the strategies required for the use of project generated knowledge. The SME participants are given the freedom to exploit the project results for further business prospect with customers, social acceptance studies, development of specific applications, etc. As a preliminary approach, access rights to the background have been established by consortium partners during the period of the implementation of the project (36 months). Nevertheless, access rights to the background will be granted by Joint Venture Agreements (JVAs) or similar under reasonable conditions after project completion. Such reasonable conditions will be calculated using the usual business methodologies as Demstack partners are currently using with other companies, always following the principle of best value for money. Description of exploitable Foreground Already Advent and Prototech are advancing their level and experience into HT PEMFC stack manufacturing, which can broaden their cooperation with industrial end-users. This project is the first collaboration between these two companies and important experience and knowledge exchange is taking place. Advent is mainly a manufacturer of Membrane Electrode Assemblies (MEAs), while during the past few years they are trying to integrate their product into a HT FC stack. Prototech has fuel cells and hydrogen technologies as one of its main market areas, while has a patent on an integrated reformer burner for HTPEM FC stacks. Their expertise is to a certain extent complementary. For both companies, this is the first stack with the specific characteristics (depicted in the DoW) that they are developing and certainly is of high benefit. Consortium involvement in exploitation activities The foreground will be exploited differently by each SME, with common approaches present amongst them. The SMEs will analyze the targeted cost and pricing of the product on the different markets, with a deeper analysis on cost sensitive markets. The Consortium Agreement signed before the contract signature will ensure the smooth evolution of these actions. According to it, knowledge shall be the property of the contractor generating it. Where several contractors have jointly carried out work generating the knowledge and where their respective share of the work cannot be ascertained, they shall have joint ownership of such knowledge and shall be entitled to use and license such knowledge without owing any financial compensation to each other. The contractors shall agree amongst themselves the allocation and terms of exercising ownership of that knowledge with a clear procedure stated in the consortium agreement (CA). The primary means of protection will be through the use of European and global patents. Each partner will retain any developed IPR and the consortium will enter into joint agreements to ensure all IPR can be exploited fairly. The CA will also ensure that any IP developed during this product is retained for the benefit of the European companies involved. 4
Additionally one representative from each SME is taking care of the IPR handling issues in the organizational structure. Moreover, ensure an appropriate pre-existing knowledge (background) protection as well as proper management of the results generated by the project (foreground). Also, dissemination of the foreground will not hamper the protection and use of the generated knowledge. To that end, dissemination activities are also supervised. Exploitation strategies Prototech plans to develop APUs (auxiliary power units) based on the HTPEM stack developed in DeMStack project. Advent will broaden their activities and will result into a reliable prototype to demonstrate to customers and future development partners. ADVENT and Prototech are entitled through different contracts with ESA for the manufacturing of a regenerative fuel cell for space applications based on High temperature PEM fuel cell technology. The HT PEM technology has been evaluated as the most compatible technology for space application due the more efficient heat management. The interface with DeMStack is promoting their work in this area. DeMStack can be already considered as the initiation of more intense joint activities between Advent and Helbio, since they are now working closely in order to construct the first fuel cell/fuel processor prototype based on their technology (a low-cost HT PEMFC 1 kw stack based on Advent PEM and constructed from the DeMStack optimized components will be integrated with a fuel processor specifically built to suit the demands of the FC stack). Being able to demonstrate the efficient operation of the prototype, the companies can jointly pursue further funding (field testing) and open a new path in the hydrogen market. The aforementioned actions clearly demonstrate the multileveled commercialization possibilities of the DeMStack prototype. Some of the HT PEMFCs possible applications are AUX power units, CHP units, battery chargers with LPG (300 W), regenerative fuel cells for space (satellites) and stationary back up power systems. HELBIO s sales are referred to customers based outside of Greece. In particular, most of the customers of Helbio are placed in countries inside EU, such as Italy, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, etc, however companies based outside of Europe, like Brazil, have bought Helbio s systems as well, providing a solid base DeMStack results exploitation and dissemination since they can be potential customers for the developed prototype. Moreover, Helbio will present its innovative prototype system in various national and international exhibitions dealing with hydrogen and fuel cell market. After the prototype is manufactured and the initial results are obtained, other technology platforms (such as Enterprise Europe Network, Advisory Council for Aeronautics Research in Europe European Biofuels Technology Platform and the European Technology Platform for the Electricity Networks of the Future) will be informed. With these platforms there is already collaboration with certain partners, and they constitute large pool of potential buyers and future development partners. 5