D5.1 FAIRsFAIR Communication, Marketing and Engagement Plan

The overall objective of FAIRsFAIR is to accelerate the realization of the goals of the EOSC by opening up and sharing all knowledge, expertise, guidelines, implementations, new trajectories, courses and education on FAIR matters. It seeks to establish a level playing field for all European member states (and beyond) when it comes to contributing data to scientific and scholarly communities and to re-using data from scientists and scholars elsewhere. All this is made possible by the coordinated effort of twenty-two partners spanning eight member states that are working together to define guidelines towards a FAIR approach to data and service management for data repositories across disciplines.

In line with this goal, this document sets out a strategy for communication and dissemination, and provides guidance to the project partners as to how to promote their activities to their respective target audiences and obtain maximum visibility. The document also contains an actionable communication plan with feasible KPIs and which describes all the European outreach activities that will be performed to support engagement with stakeholders.

The FAIRsFAIR communication strategy is a SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) and KPI-driven approach to successful community building and stakeholder engagement. Section 1 of the plan presents the project Communication and Outreach Strategy, including the objectives and the communication campaigns that will support the engagement with each stakeholder group, and the monitoring mechanisms to assess their evolution. Section 2 illustrates FAIRsFAIR Governance in the context of the EOSC, and the FAIRsFAIR Stakeholders are presented in Section 3. In Section 4 those FAIRsFAIR assets which are the project “selling” points are listed, while section 5 guides the reader through the FAIRsFAIR Outreach & Communication plan. The document closes with section 6 offering insights on the Communication and Engagement tools to be used to make the plan as pragmatic as possible. Topics include branding, online presence and content production, print collateral and social media channel utilisation and distribution.