EU researchers across an array of projects have produced valuable findings on change, adaptation and development strategies for European mountain regions in recent years. Yet, they often lack resources and experience for disseminating their results to practitioners. This collaborative webplatform, created by Ecologic Institute as part of the mountain.TRIP project, provides scientists with an expandable and user-friendly database of knowledge on communicating research results to practitioners.
To increase user familiarity with the platform, mountain.WOCUR uses an interface similar to Wikipedia. Access to hosted information is facilitated by content-based tagging, extensive interlinkage between articles and a search function. Images and other files (such as PDFs) can be uploaded to enhance the content of articles. Furthermore, mountain.WOCUR caters to the varied learning needs of different users by organizing its articles into four unique types:
- Guidelines: These articles offer practical, how-to checklists on communicating research results in a usable
way.
- Examples: These articles offer a pool of best practice examples on how to communicate research to practitioners.
- Lessons learned: These articles encompass the personal experiences and lessons learned from researchers in their dissemination activities.
- Background knowledge: These articles offer an encyclopedia of technical facts on specific dissemination tools and principles.
Mountain.WOCUR addresses people working in research projects on sustainable European mountain development such as scientists, experts designing research projects, project managers, project leaders, scientific collaborators, research institutions, research funding agencies as well as communication people like for instance the communication officer of a research project. To meet the specific needs of scientists, mountain.WOCUR aims to increase knowledge on effective communication practices to targeted groups of practitioners, rather than to the general public.
Registered mountain.TRIP community members can edit existing articles or create new ones, meaning that the platform will continue to grow.
Mountain.WOCUR was produced as part of the European Union funded FP7 project mountain.TRIP.
