EU-funded innovation needs more than a strong idea. Turning research results into something that can be used beyond the lifetime of a project requires an understanding of users, markets, regulation, ownership and the different pathways through which results can create value.
In Meet the Minds Behind the Impact, Future Needs experts share the lessons they are learning from European research and innovation projects, while introducing the people behind the work.
This time, we speak with Lina Giannivasili about exploitation: what it really means in an EU project, why it should be considered from the proposal stage, and what research teams should think about when planning a realistic route from research to uptake.
I’m Lina, an Innovation Project Manager at Future Needs, originally from Greece, and I love travelling and discovering new places. One of my favourite parts of my work is actually quite similar – I get to collaborate with people from different countries and professional backgrounds and explore technologies before they reach the market.
In simple terms, exploitation is about creating a pathway for project results to be used beyond the research itself. That does not necessarily mean commercialisation. A result might lead to a new product or service, but it could also contribute to clinical practice, policy, standards, further research, open knowledge or other forms of societal value.
Because the decisions you make during proposal development can determine what is possible later. If you understand potential users, market conditions, competing solutions, regulatory requirements or adoption barriers early enough, these insights can influence the research itself. They can help determine what evidence needs to be collected, which stakeholders should be involved, what activities should be included and who within the consortium needs to take responsibility. Exploitation shouldn’t be something added once the technical work is complete. It should develop alongside the innovation.
My main focus is getting our research out of the lab and into the real world. Most of my time is spent digging into market trends, mapping out the competition, and building business models so our results can actually survive and scale once EU funding wraps up. With a background in economics, I tend to look at technology through a practical lens. I’m interested in that point where an innovative idea starts becoming something that people can actually use.
Probably that exploitation is a report you prepare towards the end of a project. A deliverable can document the exploitation strategy, but exploitation itself is an ongoing strategic process.
Your results evolve. The market changes. You learn more about your users. Ownership and dependencies can shift. Regulatory developments can change what is possible. Sometimes the pathway you imagined at proposal stage simply turns out not to be the most realistic one.
Specificity and a clear connection to the actual research. A strong proposal should start by answering: What could be exploited? By whom? For whom? Who is responsible for taking it forward? And what could prevent uptake? It is also important not to assume that every result needs a commercial business model. Different results can have very different exploitation pathways, from commercialisation to policy influence, clinical guidance, standards, further research or open knowledge. You don’t need to have every answer at proposal stage. But you should demonstrate that you know which questions need to be answered during the project.
A good example is CLUSTREL, an EU-funded project developing a graphene-based medical device for rapid, on-demand and non-invasive anti-seizure drug delivery. The technical innovation is at the heart of the project, but technical performance alone cannot tell us whether the solution can eventually reach clinical and real-world use.
Alongside its development, we therefore need to understand the potential users and market, existing and competing solutions, industry trends, regulatory and adoption barriers, and what evidence will be needed to support future uptake. This is where exploitation becomes closely connected to the research process itself rather than something that happens afterwards.
One is when exploitation is disconnected from the rest of the proposal and appears mainly as a final report. Another is when the potential users are described very broadly, for example, simply saying “industry”, “policymakers” or “healthcare professionals”, without explaining who specifically would use a result and why.
I also think teams need to be careful about making ambitious claims about commercialisation without enough evidence behind them. A credible exploitation strategy should acknowledge what is still unknown and explain how the project will investigate it.
Definitely the variety. You can be working with researchers, companies and organisations from completely different countries and disciplines, all looking at the same innovation from different perspectives. I enjoy learning about technologies that are still emerging and then asking the practical questions around them. How could this work outside the project? Who would actually need it? What would make someone adopt it? It means I’m always learning something new, and that’s probably what keeps the work interesting for me.
As early as possible, ideally while the proposal is still being developed. That gives us the opportunity to connect exploitation with the actual research plan rather than building a strategy around decisions that have already been made.
Contact Lina to discuss your proposal and explore how we could work together: lina@futureneeds.eu
