By Julien Sudre, Horizon Europe proposal development and project management specialist, founder of Grant360 and Innotrope
Exploitation and intellectual property (IP) management in Horizon Europe start by identifying the results a project is expected to generate, establishing who owns them, deciding how they will be protected and shared, and defining who will use them after the project. Beneficiaries must plan and pursue exploitation and dissemination, while respecting the access rights and other obligations in their Grant Agreement (GA). A credible strategy connects each result to an identifiable user, a feasible route to uptake, and an accountable owner.
This guide explains how coordinators and beneficiaries can move from research outputs to commercial or non-commercial use, while managing background knowledge, ownership, licensing, open science, and long-term impact.
What is exploitation in Horizon Europe, and how does it differ from communication and dissemination?
Exploitation means using project results in further research and innovation, products, services, processes, standardisation, or policy and other practical applications. Communication makes the project and its activities visible; dissemination shares results with audiences able to use them. These activities reinforce one another, but they are not interchangeable.
The three activities answer different questions:
- Communication: who needs to know about the project and why it matters? For example, publish an accessible story about a diagnostic research project.
- Dissemination: who needs access to its findings? For example, present validated performance data to researchers and clinicians.
- Exploitation: who will use the result, and how? For example, license the diagnostic technology to a manufacturer or incorporate the evidence into clinical practice, where appropriate.
A conference presentation can disseminate an algorithm without ensuring anyone can deploy it. An exploitation plan identifies the user, the rights they need, validation still required, and resources for implementation. Exploitation need not generate sales: uptake by public authorities, further research, open-source communities, or standards bodies can also be relevant.
Primary source: European Research Executive Agency (REA): Dissemination and exploitation.
When should a consortium start planning exploitation?
Start during proposal preparation, formalise responsibilities before or at project launch, and update the strategy whenever significant results or market conditions change. Waiting until the final reporting period leaves little time to resolve ownership, validate demand, or protect an invention before publication.
At proposal stage, identify expected results, plausible users, competing solutions, existing IP, and partners' capacity to take results forward. During consortium negotiations, agree on background, access rights, publication review, and ownership procedures. During implementation, update a results register and validate exploitation assumptions with users. Before closure, assign named owners and next steps for each significant result.
For example, a research consortium developing a new sensor could interview prospective industrial users early, assess certification needs during prototyping, and identify a manufacturer before the final demonstration.
Primary source: Horizon Europe Programme Guide.
What are background, results, and access rights in Horizon Europe?
Background is pre-existing data, know-how, or information needed for the action or for exploiting its results; results are outputs generated by the action; access rights are permissions to use another beneficiary's relevant background or results under the applicable conditions. The Consortium Agreement (CA) should identify relevant background and specify any agreed restrictions.
For example, a university may bring a pre-existing software library (background) and develop a new analytical model during the project (result). A company wishing to commercialise the model may need access to both. Ownership of the new model alone does not automatically grant unrestricted rights to the pre-existing library.
Under the standard Horizon Europe framework, access to background and results needed to implement the action is generally royalty-free unless the applicable agreement permits and records an exception for background; access needed to exploit a beneficiary's own results is generally available on fair and reasonable conditions, subject to the relevant rules and agreements. Partners should check the exact grant terms, deadlines for requests, and any background restrictions rather than assume all project assets are free to use.
Primary source: European IP Helpdesk: Frequently asked questions.
Who owns results developed in a Horizon Europe project?
As a general rule, the beneficiary generating a result owns it. Funding the project or coordinating the consortium does not, by itself, make an organisation the owner of every output. Employment arrangements, third-party rights, and the terms of the GA and CA must also be considered.
A practical result register should record the result's description, contributing organisations and individuals, evidence of contributions, ownership assessment, relevant background, proposed protection, and intended use. For software, record dependencies and their licences; for datasets, distinguish rights in the database from rights and restrictions affecting the underlying data.
If one partner builds a prototype and another independently develops a testing protocol, these may be separately owned results. If they jointly invent an inseparable technical solution, joint ownership may arise.
Primary source: European IP Helpdesk: Ownership of results.
What happens when several beneficiaries jointly own a result?
Where beneficiaries jointly generate a result and their contributions cannot be established or separated for protection purposes, they should conclude a written joint ownership agreement. It should specify who can use, protect, license, transfer, and enforce the result, how costs and revenues are shared, and how disagreements will be resolved.
Under the standard default regime, where no different arrangement has been agreed, a joint owner may grant certain non-exclusive third-party licences without sublicensing, subject to advance notice and fair and reasonable compensation to the other joint owners. Do not assume that every joint owner can grant an exclusive licence or transfer the entire jointly owned asset unilaterally.
For example, if a university and a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) jointly develop a patentable device, they should decide who manages patent filing, who pays renewal fees, whether the SME can license manufacturers, and how the university may continue research use. Resolve these issues before investor discussions.
Primary source: European IP Helpdesk: Frequently asked questions.
How should beneficiaries decide whether to patent, copyright, license, or keep results confidential?
Choose protection according to the nature of the result and its intended use, not according to a blanket rule that every innovation needs a patent. Assess patentability, costs, disclosure risks, third-party rights, market conditions, and whether secrecy or openness would better support uptake.
Possible approaches include:
- Patentable technical invention: patent application before public disclosure. Main considerations include novelty, territorial coverage, filing and maintenance costs.
- Software: copyright and a deliberate software licence; patent analysis only where relevant. Main considerations include dependencies, licence compatibility and deployment model.
- Manufacturing know-how: trade-secret controls where legally appropriate. The key question is whether secrecy and access can realistically be maintained.
- Research dataset: data-sharing or controlled-access arrangement. Consider personal data, confidentiality, third-party rights and FAIR principles.
- Training methodology: copyright licensing or open educational release. Consider target users, attribution and maintenance.
A patent is not a substitute for a freedom-to-operate (FTO) assessment: owning a patent does not prove that a product can be commercialised without infringing someone else's rights. Before disclosure, consult the relevant technology-transfer or IP professionals when a result may be protectable.
Primary sources: Horizon Europe Programme Guide; European IP Helpdesk.
How can a project combine open science with intellectual property protection?
Plan the order and scope of disclosure: assess protection and legitimate restrictions first, then share publications, data, or software in line with the grant's open-science obligations. Open science and exploitation are compatible when partners distinguish what must be made accessible from what may legitimately remain restricted.
For instance, a consortium may file a patent application before presenting the underlying invention publicly, publish a scientific paper through an eligible open-access route, and share non-sensitive research data with appropriate documentation. Data sharing must account for personal data, security, confidentiality, and other legitimate restrictions. The FAIR principles - findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable - do not mean that every dataset must be unrestricted.
Publication review procedures should have clear contacts and decision deadlines so that protection assessments do not become an indefinite barrier to dissemination.
Primary source: Horizon Europe Programme Guide.
How do you identify and prioritise Key Exploitable Results?
A Key Exploitable Result (KER) is a project output with a credible pathway to use and impact; prioritise it by the problem it solves, evidence of demand, readiness, ownership, dependencies, and the resources needed for uptake. A deliverable is a reporting output, whereas a KER is something that users can adopt, build upon, or deploy; the two may overlap but are not equivalent.
A practical screening exercise asks: Who specifically needs the result? What would they do differently with it? What evidence shows that it works? Who controls the necessary rights? What remains to be validated? Who will finance or maintain it after the grant?
Illustrative portfolio, not project data:
- Diagnostic prototype: intended user: medical-device manufacturer. Main barrier: regulatory and clinical evidence. Next validation step: define validation and regulatory pathway.
- Open-source analysis tool: intended user: research laboratories. Main barrier: documentation and maintenance. Next validation step: pilot with external users.
- Policy methodology: intended user: regional public authority. Main barrier: fit with administrative processes. Next validation step: co-design a pilot with the authority.
These examples illustrate why a commercially promising prototype and a freely shared methodology may require very different exploitation plans. Avoid assigning numerical impact scores without evidence and agreed decision criteria.
Which exploitation routes can turn results into real-world use?
Select a route based on the result, the prospective user, and the beneficiary's capacity to support uptake. Possible routes include internal use, further research, licensing, assignment of rights, spin-off creation, open-source adoption, standardisation, training, and policy uptake.
A licence lets another organisation use a result under agreed conditions while ownership may remain with the licensor. A transfer assigns ownership, subject to the applicable contractual obligations and protection of other beneficiaries' access rights. A spin-off may be suitable where a team needs a dedicated organisation to develop and deploy a technology, but it requires clear IP rights, governance, financing, and a credible route to customers.
For a public-sector methodology, an exploitation plan might instead identify a responsible authority, a pilot timetable, staff training, and the budget needed for continued use. Commercialisation is not the only valid form of exploitation.
Primary source: European IP Helpdesk: Transfers and licences.
What should an exploitation roadmap contain?
For each priority result, specify its owner, target users, proposed route to use, outstanding work, required rights, milestones, resources, and evidence of uptake. This turns a general promise of impact into a plan that can be reviewed and updated.
For a research software tool, a roadmap can include:
- Owner and decision-maker: beneficiary responsible for the code and release decisions.
- Target users: laboratories performing a defined analysis.
- Value proposition: reduces manual processing for a specified workflow.
- Rights and dependencies: confirm ownership and third-party software licences.
- Validation: external pilot and reproducibility testing.
- Route to uptake: documented open-source release with support arrangements.
- Resources: named maintainer and hosting budget.
- Evidence: active deployments, user feedback, and documented reuse.
Practical management recommendation: review this roadmap at major technical milestones and before periodic reporting. Do not mistake downloads, website views, or expressions of interest for proven adoption.
What must be reported about exploitation and results ownership?
Beneficiaries should keep their results, ownership information, dissemination activities, and exploitation measures current and complete the applicable final reporting requirements. The Horizon Europe Programme Guide explains that the Results Ownership List identifies the owner or owners of project results and is required for final reporting under the relevant procedures.
Maintain a working register throughout the action instead of reconstructing ownership at the end. The internal register can include protection and exploitation information, but it should not be confused with the exact fields of the official Results Ownership List.
If a result has not been exploited, document the efforts made, the barriers encountered, and the next feasible steps. Check the applicable grant conditions and current guidance before making claims about registration on the Horizon Results Platform or any specific follow-up obligation.
Primary source: Horizon Europe Programme Guide.
How long do exploitation obligations continue after the project ends?
The standard Horizon Europe framework requires beneficiaries to make best efforts to exploit their results for the period specified in the applicable Grant Agreement, generally up to four years after the end of the action. This is an obligation to make genuine efforts, not a guarantee that every result will generate revenue or achieve market uptake.
Before closure, designate the organisation responsible for each result, preserve relevant documentation, agree how partners will handle requests for access or licensing, and schedule post-project follow-up. A spin-off still negotiating a licence or a policy tool awaiting public procurement may need substantial work after the final review.
The signed GA, its annexes, and any action-specific conditions govern the precise obligations; do not rely on a generic timeline where the contract differs.
Primary sources: REA: Dissemination and exploitation; Horizon Europe Programme Guide.
Which European resources can support exploitation and IP management?
Use official guidance for compliance questions and specialist support services for result-specific exploitation challenges. The European IP Helpdesk provides IP guidance and training; the Horizon Results Platform helps showcase research results; and the European Research Executive Agency's dissemination and exploitation guidance explains the relevant concepts and beneficiary obligations.
Availability and scope of individual support schemes can change. Check current eligibility and service descriptions before describing a particular coaching or matchmaking service as available to every consortium.
What mistakes should consortia avoid when managing exploitation?
The recurring management risk is treating exploitation as a final deliverable rather than a continuing set of decisions about users, rights, and implementation. Address it through early planning, named responsibilities, and evidence-based reviews.
Common scenarios include publishing an invention before assessing protection; assuming a partner's pre-existing software is freely reusable; leaving jointly generated results without an agreed licensing process; promising a spin-off without clarifying its IP position; and describing dissemination metrics as evidence of actual use.
A simple preventive practice is to review every significant new result through the same sequence: identify it, document contributions, establish ownership and dependencies, assess protection, identify users, select an exploitation route, and assign the next action.
Conclusion: What makes an exploitation strategy credible in Horizon Europe?
A credible exploitation strategy connects valuable results to identifiable users and practical routes to uptake, supported by clear ownership, appropriate protection, access rights, resources, and accountability. Communication makes the project visible; dissemination makes findings available; exploitation ensures that results can be used beyond the project itself.
Start before the grant begins, keep decisions current during implementation, and leave each priority result with a responsible owner and a realistic post-project plan. Above all, distinguish the contractual obligations in the signed GA from the consortium's own management choices.
About the author
Julien Sudre specialises in Horizon Europe proposal development, collaborative project management, and project communication. Through Grant 360, he develops practical resources to help research and innovation organisations plan, manage, and maximise the use of results from European collaborative projects.