Working Group 4 (WG4) is the engine behind EARLICOST’s communication, dissemination, and valorisation efforts, ensuring that the network’s scientific advances reach a broad range of audiences, raising awareness, fostering engagement and collaboration and supporting the uptake and valorization of EARLICOST’s results. With a clear strategic framework in place, WG4’s first year has focused on building the infrastructure, messaging strategy, and community engagement needed to maximise the network’s impact across Europe and beyond.

WG4’s outreach strategy is anchored around six key objectives designed to create impactful science communication: sharing scientific advances and technological progress; exchanging knowledge across research, industry, and user communities; growing visibility across Europe and internationally through harmonised lidar methods; fostering stakeholder uptake of interdisciplinary science; opening participation to ensure gender balance, inclusiveness of target countries, and strong engagement from young researchers; and continuously assessing and improving communication impact through measurable indicators.

These objectives are delivered through three interconnected pillars: 

• Communication is about connecting—sharing timely, accessible information with all stakeholders. 
• Dissemination is about sharing—publishing and presenting scientific results. 
• Valorisation is about embedding—ensuring the long-term uptake of methodologies, datasets, and technological advances. 

Together, these pillars trace a clear path from activity to lasting impact: communicate, disseminate, valorise, and ultimately create impact.

Engaging  and Reaching Target Audiences:

WG4 strategy adopts tailored  approaches to four distinct audience groups: 

For policymakers and institutional bodies, the focus is on executive summaries, policy-relevant highlights, and participation in meetings with WMO, ACTRIS, and ESA. 

For the general public, the strategy centres on social media campaigns, infographics, short video content such as reels, press releases, and public-facing webinars. 

For the academic and research community, WG4 is prioritising open-access scientific publications, conference presentations, workshops, a dedicated Special Issue, training schools, and harmonisation reports. 

For end-users and industry, the group is developing technical briefs, operational guidelines, and stakeholder workshops in close coordination with WG3’s activities and pilot applications.

Present Contributions and Deliverables:

On the communication front, WG4 has established EARLICOST’s core communication infrastructure, including the official website and dedicated digital and social media channels. To better understand where community members want to contribute, the group ran an Expression of Interest (EOI) survey asking which activity groups participants would most like to join. 

Scientific dissemination, covering publications, conferences, and related activities, drew the strongest interest (76.9%), followed by digital communication (website, social media, and newsletter) (46.2%). Outreach and education, including webinars and training schools, and visual communications, such as infographics and promotional material, each attracted (38.5%) interest, followed by industry and user engagement (30.8%) and valorisation and impact activities, including success stories and use cases (15.4%). These results provide a useful indication of where member engagement is currently strongest and where further participation could be encouraged. On the deliverables side, WG4 has already completed two key milestones: D4.1, the Action Website, and D4.2, the Communication, Dissemination and Valorisation Plan. Two further deliverables are now ongoing and will be produced annually: D4.3 -Annual Report on Dissemination and Outreach Activities and Achievements, and D4.4 – Annual Report on Scientific Publications.

Digital Communication and Reach 

EARLICOST’s digital communication presence has grown steadily during its first year. Since its February 2026 launch, the website has attracted more than 8,900 unique visitors and over 42,000 page views, while LinkedIn generated more than 15,000 impressions between April and September.

The launch of EARLICOST’s Instagram account in July 2026 further expanded the Action’s visual communication, providing a more dynamic channel for sharing scientific topics, meeting highlights, opportunities, and success stories with both the EARLICOST community and wider audiences. In its first months, 16 posts generated 461 interactions, including likes, reposts, and shares, establishing a promising baseline for the channel’s continued growth. Facebook has further complemented this multi-channel approach, extending the visibility of EARLICOST activities and news to broader audiences.

Across the different platforms, some of the strongest engagement was recorded around major EARLICOST activities, particularly international conferences, grantee success stories, and the Joint EARLINET & EARLICOST Meeting in Athens, highlighting the value of timely, event-driven communication.

During the Meeting

The Joint EARLINET & EARLICOST Meeting in Athens provided an important opportunity for WG4 members to meet in person and strengthen connections not only within the group, but also with colleagues from the other EARLICOST Working Groups. Bringing together 138 EARLICOST members, both onsite and online, the meeting offered the opportunity to present to the wider community what had been achieved during Year 1 and to introduce WG4’s priorities and planned activities for Year 2.

The dedicated WG4 splinter session created valuable space for more focused discussion among group members. Meeting face-to-face but also with the WG4 members that joined online allowed the team to move beyond reporting on completed activities and discuss concrete ideas, priorities and new actions for the coming period, while also considering how WG4 can work more closely with the other Working Groups.

An interactive discussion game helped structure this process.  Dr. Joelle Buxmann (WG4 Leader), Dr. Lucia Mona ( WG4 Co-leader), Ioanna Mavropoulou (Science Communicator), and Dr. Hugo Ricketts (University of Manchester) participated on-site, while WG4 members, including Fouz Siddiqui, Dr. Adolfo Comerón, and others, joined online as the group worked together to prioritise the goals that will shape WG4’s future direction. Special thanks to Dr. Laura Busato (Head of Science Communication at SISSA Media Lab) for moderating the activity! The game brought real clarity to our goals, with the order of the flashcards reflecting the group’s agreed priorities.

On the following day, the discussion was broadened to the whole EARLICOST community through an interactive Slido session. Participants were invited to share their views on EARLICOST’s identity, added value, target audiences, communication priorities and internal collaboration. Responses strongly emphasised collaboration, networking, knowledge exchange and shared expertise as central characteristics of the Action. The Slido results also provided useful guidance for future communication activities. When asked where greater communication effort is needed, participants ranked the modelling community first, followed by space agencies and atmospheric researchers, air-quality authorities and citizens. Participants also suggested practical ways to strengthen communication between the Working Groups, including regular activity summaries and updates, shared documents and platforms, joint sessions and meetings, and stronger coordination between WG representatives.

Together, the WG4 splinter discussions, the prioritisation exercise and the community-wide Slido consultation provided valuable input for shaping WG4’s next steps. They also reinforced an important principle for Year 2: EARLICOST communication should not only disseminate the Action’s activities and results, but also create opportunities for the community to contribute to how communication, outreach and engagement develop.

Future Direction

WG4’s near-term priorities are focused on strengthening the network’s outward-facing presence. The first EARLICOST Newsletter is targeted for publication by the end of September 2026, with proposed content including meeting highlights, WG updates, grant news, and broader community updates. Alongside this, the group is coordinating more closely with the growing pool of members who have expressed interest in WG4, working to align efforts across the network’s various communication channels, including the website, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. A key open discussion point for the group going forward is identifying the core messages and topics that will most effectively increase engagement and visibility for EARLICOST across all its platforms. The aim for Year 2 is therefore not simply to increase EARLICOST’s visibility, but to turn communication into a stronger tool for participation, knowledge exchange, stakeholder engagement and valorisation across the network.