Building a community around graphene and related materials 

The Dissemination Work Package ensures that the Graphene Flagship’s work is visible and accessible to its many stakeholders. Our website, social media, marketing materials and annual reports help spread the news about the latest breakthroughs, establishing the Graphene Flagship as the source for information on graphene and related materials (GRMs). Our tradeshows and exhibitions help promote the project’s commercialisation goals, while our scientific and diversity events work to foster a community for those working across the entire GRM value chain, from the lab to the factory floor. 

The last 10 years 

As a service Work Package, Dissemination has evolved in step with the Graphene Flagship over the past decade. In the beginning, the goal was to help people understand what graphene is, why it is unique and how it can be applied to critical applications that touch all our lives. As the Graphene Flagship has become more established and graphene has become widely known, our mission has shifted to sharing the project’s broader commercialisation message, success stories and exciting GRM applications. 

Community building has always been a key component for Dissemination. The collaborations between academia and industry; Partners, Associated Members and the global community; and between producers and suppliers are a big part of what makes the Graphene Flagship successful. Over the years Dissemination has developed events that bring people together to share information, network and become inspired. Graphene Week, the project’s annual conference taken over from the European Science Foundation at the start of the Graphene Flagship, is the oldest graphene conference, connecting graphene researchers and industry for 18 years. Our activities for early career researchers have also been important community builders, both to foster the next generation of graphene thought leaders and to facilitate connections between our junior and senior members. 

Diversity and inclusion are also a foundation of our dissemination efforts. The Women in Graphene initiative, kicked off in Core 1 was made up of a series of events tailored to supporting women scientists in the Graphene Flagship. In Core 3, we expanded and rebranded the initiative to Diversity in Graphene and shifted our goal to celebrating diversity, build a welcoming community and raising awareness of the challenges faced by underrepresented groups in all STEM fields, in particular those in the GRM community. Today the initiative includes skills training through our Career Day programmes, a mentoring programme to provide one-on-one support and career coaching in addition to our regular events featuring inspirational talks from members of our community . 

This year’s progress 

The past year was marked by the return to in person events. Graphene Week 2022, held at the awe-inspiring BMW Welt in Munich, Germany, 5-9 September, brought together graphene researchers and industry to an unprecedented level. Focusing on “Where science meets business,” the conference hosted several industry outreach events, including the Innovation Forum, a special session by the business networking company Bayern Innovativ and the first ever in person 2D Experimental Pilot Line workshop providing “An industry perspective on CMOS integration.” 

At the Graphene Week, the Dissemination team kicked off a year-long celebration of the Graphene Flagship’s decade of 2D materials innovation. The Open Forum featured a panel discussing the success of the project, and a pavilion was constructed to showcase our accomplishments in key application areas. A series of videos highlighting the Spearhead Projects was also prepared for this exhibition. The pavilion remained at BMW Welt over the weekend, inviting the thousands of people who visit the venue daily to learn about graphene and interact with our demos. 

Tradeshows were also back in 2022, and the Graphene Flagship exhibited at both ILA Berlin and Enlit Europe in Frankfurt, Germany. ILA Berlin, one of the main European tradeshows for the aerospace sector, took place 22-26 June and gathered around 550 exhibitors and more than 72,000 visitors. Here we showcased key applications for graphene in aircraft and in space, including demonstrations of our GICE ice protection system and AeroGRaFT’s air filter unit. Enlit Europe, a show dedicated to the energy transition, took place from 29 November to 1 December 2022 and attracted 700 exhibitors and 11,000 visitors. Graphene-based solar cells, graphene-enhanced circuit breakers and inkjet-printed supercapacitors were showcased at our booth located inside a dedicated EU project zone. 

In addition to our work highlighting the Graphene Flagship’s decade of success, we commissioned an economic impact report from WifOR Institute, an independent economic research institute, to provide concrete data on the European Commission’s return on its Graphene Flagship investment. (See page 4.) A full report will be published soon with figures illustrating the impact our project has had on Europe and the global economy. 

Over the next year, Dissemination will continue to celebrate the Graphene Flagship’s 10-year anniversary, culminating in Graphene Week 2023 in Gothenburg, Sweden. The project has accomplished great things over the past decade, and Dissemination has been there every step of the way to share our successes with the graphene community, Europe and the world! Looking forward to Horizon Europe, Dissemination will continue to play a key role in the Graphene Flagship initiative, and some of our team will continue to our work in the Coordinating and Support Action that will launch in October 2023. We look forward to reshaping our dissemination activities to match the latest evolution of the project.