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DODS: communication tool for project leaders

Interview of Mister Obe Seddig, Head of Business Development DODS

1- Could you please present your structure, your position among the UK and the whole European Union as well as the main policies you focus on?

In the UK the company has earned this position after a long and successful history built upon providing contact and biographical information about and to the Houses of Parliament and the Civil Service since 1832. Renowned for the quality, accuracy and relevance of the political information it provides it is one of the oldest political publishing houses in the world offering some of the most regarded and respected political titles in the world.
In Europe, Dods specialises in political information and communication. Publishers of The Parliament Magazine, Regional Review, Research Review, theparliament.com, Dod\'s European Companion and the European Public Affairs Directory, we also provide EU monitoring to an increasing number of European policy stakeholders.
The Parliament Magazine, published every two weeks, reflects and reports upon the work of the European Parliament, the European Commission, the Council as well as broader European issues, providing insight and analysis into European politics and policy. Our aim is to encourage debate and discussion and inform policy making while providing politically impartial coverage of the key events taking place in Europe.

In 2006 the sister publication Regional Review was launched under high patronage of Michel Delebarre then the president of Committee of Regions.

Research Review was launched in its new stand alone format in June 2008.

All three magazine deal respectively with European policy, European regional policy and European Research programs.


2- You have participated to a training with our consultants, what were your special needs and what content did Welcomeurope propose you for the training session?


Due to our extensive collaboration with EU funded project (Cordis and Structural funds) there was a need for us to understand better the complexity of funding system in Europe and moreover in which areas we would be able to help projects and their coordinators communicate with a wide audience ranging from policy maker, researchers and industry.

Welcomeurope’s training course was a very thorough and methodical approach to the basics of obtaining funds from the EU and made us realise how important communication (dissemination) can be for them.


3- According to you, what was the added value of a tailor-made session? Did it meet your expectations?


It did meet our expectations on the understanding of how the maze of European Research funding works and how many options there are. However, not being interested ourselves in applying for funds (specific project) the relevance was not that obvious.

I would ad that thanks to Welcomeurope’s training session, we are now studying the possibility of responding to some call proposal in the media and communication field. It made us aware of our potential as one of Europe’s leading communication organisations.


4- In your magazines, you communicate on European funding programmes. How can DODS help EU funded projects to be disseminated?


Due to our long presence and establishment in the EU and our special relationship with the European Parliament, the editorial in our three magazines are from high profile European personalities (MEPs, Commissioners, DG Directors and Heads of prominent research organisations). This is then reinforced by a high rate of readership, as mentioned above, 63% of MEP read every issue of the magazine. An EU funded project can communicate with this audience by different means (display adverts, online banners, round-tables and bespoke events). In each case, we make sure that there is relevance between the editorial and the topic a project is working on: as an example, the next issue of The Research Review has a policy focus on Food and Agriculture, the main editorial bids include Marianne Fischer Bowl Commissioner for Agriculture and Jacques Dupuy President of European Crop protection. We then allocate print pages next to those articles for projects with “Food” action line or indeed “agriculture”. Thus the relevance and visibility are optimal.



5- What are the other opportunities DODS offer to help project leaders to disseminate on their projects?


The online version of the magazine has policy areas; it is therefore possible to have a promotional banner in such a policy area relevant to the project’s activity. This banner will be then directly linked to the project’s own website. Finally in our latest version of “digi-mags” we can host videos and interview promoting a project’s results or an event.

We hold several events every year helping organisations or projects to promote their work.

We can also organise a tailor made round table. As an example, we are in the process of organising a round table (20 people) where a successfully ended project is seeking further partnership with two Italian regions. With our background, it is very easy for us to organise such an event where we can link the key decision makers in 5 northern Italian regions, the project coordinator and representatives of R&D of 3 biggest companies in each region. The purpose is that the partner seeker has a choice of 5 potential partners under one roof in a given day and can easily identify the best one according to his criteria.