Knowledge dissemination is a distinct, often mandatory component of a funded research project: a planned, structured effort to communicate research processes and findings to defined audiences, including audiences well outside the immediate scientific field. It is frequently confused with three neighbouring concepts — open-access publishing, public engagement, and the data management plan (DMP) — but funders increasingly require it as its own deliverable, evaluated on its own criteria, because none of those three neighbours actually cover the same ground on their own.
What “knowledge dissemination” means as a funder requirement
As a grant-lifecycle term, dissemination refers to the deliberate transmission of research knowledge, methods, and results to specified target audiences through selected channels, on a stated timeline, in pursuit of a defined outcome — as distinct from simply making an output publicly available and hoping the right people find it. A dissemination plan (sometimes titled a communications plan, a knowledge translation plan, or, in Canada, folded into a broader “knowledge mobilization” plan) typically has to specify:
- Target audiences — not just “other researchers in the field,” but named categories such as policymakers, practitioners, industry partners, affected communities, or the general public, each of which needs different content and a different channel.
- Outputs and channels — peer-reviewed articles, but also plain-language summaries, policy briefs, conference presentations, toolkits, datasets, software, websites, webinars, or community events, matched to the audiences above.
- Timeline and responsibility — when each dissemination activity happens relative to the project’s milestones, and who on the team is responsible for it.
- Anticipated outcome or impact — what change in awareness, practice, or policy the dissemination activity is meant to produce, and how that will be assessed.
This is proposal-stage narrative that reviewers assess for quality and feasibility, not a passive compliance checkbox, and increasingly it is reported against at the end of the grant, not just proposed at the start.
How two real funders define and require it
SSHRC (Canada): the Knowledge Mobilization module
Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) uses “knowledge mobilization” as its umbrella term, defined in its own guidance as encompassing “a wide range of activities relating to the production and use of research results,” including knowledge synthesis, dissemination, transfer, exchange, and co-creation or co-production by researchers and knowledge users. Most SSHRC grant applications include a mandatory Knowledge Mobilization module in which applicants must describe their target audiences and demonstrate that the plan’s reach is both sufficient and appropriate for the project. That module is evaluated as part of the application’s assessed feasibility and potential for impact within and beyond the social sciences and humanities — it is not a boilerplate afterthought. SSHRC also encourages recipients to disseminate in both of Canada’s official languages where feasible, and in the language of the community where the research takes place, particularly for Indigenous languages. Recipients must then account for what was actually done in an end-of-grant report covering outcomes and impact, closing the loop between what a proposal promised and what happened.
Horizon Europe: the Plan for Dissemination and Exploitation (PDEC), kept separate from the DMP
The European Commission’s Horizon Europe programme is unusually explicit about treating dissemination as a document distinct from data management. Guidance for applicants advises that a project’s work plan give due visibility — ideally as distinct tasks or work packages — to three separate strands: data management, dissemination and exploitation, and communication activities. Beneficiaries are normally required to maintain two separate live documents: a Data Management Plan (a first version typically due around month 6 of the project, updated as data-related decisions are made) and a Plan for the Dissemination and Exploitation of results including Communication activities (PDEC), whose first draft is submitted as part of the proposal’s Impact section and is evaluated on the suitability and quality of the actions proposed to disseminate and exploit the project’s key results. The DMP asks how research data will be handled; the PDEC asks how the project’s findings will reach the audiences who can use or act on them. Horizon Europe deliberately keeps these as two documents because they answer two different questions.
NIH: dissemination requirements exist, but narrower and more mechanism-specific
NIH does not require a generalized “dissemination plan” narrative the way SSHRC or Horizon Europe do. Its dissemination-related obligations are more targeted: the NIH Public Access Policy requires that peer-reviewed manuscripts arising from NIH funding be deposited in PubMed Central, and NIH’s Policy on the Dissemination of NIH-Funded Clinical Trial Information (NOT-OD-16-149) separately requires registration and results reporting on ClinicalTrials.gov for applicable clinical trials. Both are real, binding dissemination requirements, but they are mechanism-specific compliance obligations tied to particular output types (a manuscript, a trial record) rather than a holistic, audience-mapped communications plan of the kind SSHRC and Horizon Europe evaluate as part of a proposal’s merit. A US-funded project working with a Canadian or European partner may therefore need to satisfy a narrower NIH-style deposit requirement and a broader SSHRC- or Horizon-Europe-style dissemination plan simultaneously, for the same set of results.
Why dissemination is not the same as open-access publishing
Open access is a specific mechanism for removing paywalls from one output type: the peer-reviewed journal article (and, depending on the route, its underlying data). An open-access mandate can satisfy part of a dissemination commitment, but it does not satisfy the whole of one, for two reasons. First, dissemination plans typically cover outputs beyond the peer-reviewed literature — datasets, software, policy briefs, plain-language summaries — that open-access publishing policy does not touch. Second, “freely accessible” is not the same as “reached the intended audience”: a gold-open-access article behind no paywall still requires a policymaker or practitioner audience to know it exists, find it, and be able to use it, which is precisely the audience-mapping and channel-selection work a dissemination plan is meant to force. Open access removes a legal and financial barrier to access; dissemination is the active work of getting the right content in front of the right audience through the right channel.
Why dissemination is not the same as public engagement
Public engagement (also called science communication or, in some funder taxonomies, outreach) and dissemination overlap but are not interchangeable. Dissemination, as funders typically define it, is fundamentally about transmitting findings outward once they exist — it can be one-directional. Public engagement more often implies a two-way relationship: consultation, co-design, or public dialogue that can happen before or during a project, not only after results are in hand. SSHRC’s “knowledge mobilization” framing is unusual in that it deliberately spans both, explicitly including “co-creation or co-production by researchers and knowledge users” alongside dissemination and transfer — but even there, the terms name different activities within one umbrella rather than treating them as synonyms. A dissemination plan that only lists downstream communication activities (a press release, a conference talk) without any audience engagement can still be a complete, fundable dissemination plan; it would not, on its own, constitute a public engagement plan if a funder asks for one of those specifically.
How a dissemination plan relates to a data management plan
Because both documents are commonly requested at proposal stage and both concern what happens to project outputs, DMPs and dissemination plans get conflated in practice more than any of the other pairings above. They answer different questions. A DMP, covered in detail in CASRAI’s guide to NIH vs. NSF data management plan requirements, addresses how research data specifically will be organized, documented, stored, and made accessible or reusable — including questions like data sharing agreements and repository choice. A dissemination plan addresses how the project’s findings, methods, and non-data outputs will reach defined audiences and produce an outcome. Horizon Europe’s decision to require both as separate documents, described above, is the clearest funder-level acknowledgment that these are genuinely distinct obligations rather than one plan wearing two names.
Frequently asked questions
Is a dissemination plan the same thing as a data management plan?
No. A DMP covers how research data is organized, stored, and shared; a dissemination plan covers how findings and other outputs reach target audiences. Horizon Europe requires both as separate deliverables specifically because they cover different ground — see the PDEC section above.
Does publishing open access satisfy a funder’s dissemination requirement?
It can satisfy part of one, but rarely the whole of one. Open access addresses accessibility of the peer-reviewed article; most dissemination requirements also expect non-publication outputs and audience-specific communication (plain-language summaries, policy briefs, community-facing materials) that an open-access mandate does not itself require.
What is “knowledge mobilization,” and how does it relate to dissemination?
Knowledge mobilization is SSHRC’s broader umbrella term for the production and use of research results, encompassing knowledge synthesis, dissemination, transfer, exchange, and co-creation between researchers and knowledge users. Dissemination is one activity inside that umbrella, not a synonym for the whole of it.
Do all funders require a formal dissemination plan?
No — requirements vary widely by funder and even by funding instrument within one funder. SSHRC requires a Knowledge Mobilization module in most competitions; Horizon Europe requires a PDEC as part of the Impact section of a proposal; NIH’s dissemination-related obligations are narrower and mechanism-specific (public access deposit, clinical trial registration and results reporting) rather than a single holistic plan. Always check the specific funding opportunity’s instructions rather than assuming a generic requirement applies.
