Dissemination Plan

During the first part of the COST Action, the dissemination will mainly be focused internally to the various partners involved in the Action. The first meetings and reports will serve to harmonize and collate all the available information. During the second part, findings and recommendations will be disseminated to the wider target audience:

Researchers and Research institutes

The scientific reports and papers will be made publicly available. Given the objective of this COST Action to stimulate multidisciplinary research and innovation, European scientists from a broad range of disciplines will have access to up-to-date research reports and to a database with a collation of research results on novel structural skins.

Standardisation Bodies

Standardisation is one of the main objectives of this COST Action. Recommendations will be made to the Standardisation Bodies, and more precisely to CEN TC248 WG4 and CEN TC250 WG5, respectively focusing on an EN standard for the structural characterisation of coated fabrics and the Eurocode for membrane structures.

Industry – architects, engineering offices and manufacturers

The COST Action will collate, harmonise and standardise – in cooperation with partners from the industry – the different approaches in the characterisation of materials and in the design and analysis of constructions with novel structural skins. Innovative outcomes of the multidisciplinary research on novel and energy efficient structural skins will be communicated. This information is of great use for the industry and will be disseminated to them by means of state of the art reports, scientific and technical articles and recommendations. Active involvement from industry will be stimulated. The educational pack will be beneficial for bachelor and master programs in universities and high schools and for specialised professional programs throughout Europe.

General public

The general information, guidelines and design and analysis methods for novel structural skins will be made available on a public website. Individuals can learn from this knowledge and experience and interact with this topic. Communicating the information on novel structural skins widely will enhance the dissemination.

Website

A website will be created that will serve from the very beginning as the ‘portal’ for this Action. Website visitors will find relevant information (including the aims and objectives), research reports and papers, demonstration versions of the educational pack, links to related research projects and institutions, the agenda of events etc. In addition, it will provide password protected access to confidential information and working reports for the participants.

E-mail network

A database with the contact details of the participants of the COST Action will allow fast distribution of information, updates and announcements.

Publications

In the first part of the Action, state of the art reports for the most relevant sub-topics will be established and communicated. At the end of the Action, the scientific outcomes will be published in the final report and the proceedings of the Research Conference and the recommendations for Standards as Technical Specifications. All publications will be made available on the website.
Journal Articles: It is a priority to join forces and produce at least one joint international peer reviewed scientific journal paper per year per working group. If allowed by the copyrights, also these articles will be made available on the website.

Educational pack

A series of didactic chapters and presentations will instruct the reader about structural skins. Starting from the historical use of membranes in tent structures, through its current structural application, the design and analysis of lightweight structures with novel structural skins will be communicated in this educational pack, especially targeted at universities, practicing engineers and architects and everyone interested. The educational pack will be available on the website.

Events

The organisation of scientific seminars and Short Term Scientific Missions will allow the exploration of multi-disciplinary and multi-sector opportunities and research. Separate meetings of individual working groups, as well as joint meetings involving all the working groups will take place. One Research Conference will be organised after 3 years.

Besides making all the information publicly available, several dissemination activities – such as presentations at conferences or fairs and publications in journals or reviews – focused on various target audiences, will take place during the Action. The Management Committee, responsible for the dissemination will coordinate, evaluate and reassess dissemination strategies as the project progresses.

By participating in various scientific conferences and networks, all participants will actively contribute to the awareness of the COST Action and its objectives and goals. The various working groups will interact proactively with their target audience, e.g. partners from the industry or Standardisation Bodies, and disseminate specific research results and reports.