NoDARS Project Steering Group

First Meeting

Riga, Latvia

22 October 2014

Reference / NoDARS PSG 1/4.1b/1
Title / Communication plan for the Northern Dimension Antibiotic Resistance Study (NoDARS) project
Submitted by / Secretariat
Summary/Note / Consistent with the Grant Contract General Conditions, Article 6:
“6.1. Unless the European Commission agrees or requests otherwise, the Beneficiary(ies) shall take all necessary steps to publicise the fact that the European Union has financed or co-financed the Action. Such measures shall comply with the Communication and Visibility Manual for European Union External Actions laid down and published by the European Commission, that can be found at ( or with any other guidelines agreed between the European Commission and the Beneficiary(ies).”
Article 6.2 The Coordinator shall submit a communication plan for the approval of the European Commission and report on its implementation in accordance with Article 2.”
This document proposes the ways to meet the above requirement.
Requested action / For discussion and approval

Table of Contents

Introduction

Antibiotic Resistance project – background information

Objectives

Overall communication objectives

Specific objectives

Target groups

Activities

Project strategy and main activities

Internal dissemination activities (within NDPHS)

External dissemination activities

Communication tools

Indicators

Completion of the communication objectives

Provisions for feedback

Resources

Human resources

Financial resources

Introduction

This document provides an overview of the communication plan for the Northern Dimension Antibiotic Resistance study (NoDARS) project. The plan will be sent to the European Commission for their approval. This document’s goal is to specify the communication objectives, target groups, actions, tools as well as resources of the communication plan for the program period of 36 months (01/10/2014 – 31/09/2016). It also aims to help achieve a proper general communication and engagement within the NoDARS project network and vis-à-vis other relevant stakeholders.

This plan arises from the Grant Contract No 2014/344-660 which has received funding fromthe European Union andis largely based on the template that is provided in the Communication and Visibility Manual for European Union External Actions (2010) (

NoDARSproject – background information

The projectaims to provide health-care professionals, authorities and policy makers with comparable data that accurately reflect antibiotic resistance levels and the penetration of antibiotic resistance in the healthy population and to evaluate and suggest improvements for existing AMR strategies within the states of the participating partners.

Objectives:

Overall objectives:

  1. To assess if current national guidelines for treatment of uncomplicated infections, in the respective states, are based on data that are overestimating antibiotic resistance and if so provide advice to relevant authorities and professional societies in order to facilitate and promote a revision of such guidelines.
  2. Strengthening of capacities regarding methodology in antibiotic susceptibility testing and thereby support ongoing global surveillance initiatives from the WHO and regional such initiatives by the ECDC and WHO-Europe.

Specific objectives:

  • Identify and establish comparable sentinel sites in each of the states to assess true resistance levels in Escherichia coli causing uncomplicated UTIs
  • Assess the penetration of antibiotic resistance in society and identify specific resistance determinants among the normal flora of healthy individuals in tested at the participating laboratories.
  • Assess and improve existing guidelines for the treatment of uncomplicated UTIs
  • Evaluate and suggest improvements for existing AMR strategies

The NoDARS project is led by the NDPHS Secretariatsupported by the Public Health Agency of Swedenand additionallyinvolves six Project Partners from Finland, Germany, Latvia, Norway,Poland and Russia.

Led by the Public Health Agency of Sweden,Work Package 6 (WP6) in the project description,specifies the actions that will be taken to ensure properdissemination of project results.

Objectives

Overall communication objectives

The general objective of the communication is todisseminate project results to the target groups. To ensure that the current guidelines for antibiotic treatment of common infections in primary care will be revised, as appropriate, the Project Partners will after having finished WP4 (i) discuss project findings and recommendations with the NDPHS Task Group on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR TG) and the NDPHS Committee of Senior Representatives (CSR), and subsequently (ii) present recommendations on further actions to relevant national professional organizations and authorities.

Additionally communication aims to increase the visibility of the NoDARS project and emphasize the cooperation with and support received from the European Union.

Specific objectives

  • To help set up mechanisms for effective and timely communication;
  • To coordinate the communication activities in relation to the project;
  • To guarantee that the target groups are aware of the ongoing project;
  • To ensure that the target groups are updated about the project’s process;
  • To ensure that the target groups and the beneficiary population are updated about the project’s outcome and impact;
  • To ensure that the beneficiary population is aware of the EU role, support and cooperation in the NoDARS project.

Target groups

The target groups of the action include: policy makers in the sphere of halting antibiotic resistance; representatives of the scientific community; international, governmental organizationsworking onantibiotic resistance, health care providers in Sweden, Russia, Norway, Latvia, Poland, Finland, Germany and other participating countries of the NDPHS.

Activities

Project strategy and main activities

The NoDARS project network is aiming to communicate with and inform professional organisations and national authorities of resistance levels in uncomplicated urinary tract infections to promote rational antibiotic use. Furthermore, the project shall communicate and inform professional organisations, national authorities and policy makers regarding the penetration of resistance of society in relation AMR-policies in order to facilitate evidence based national AMR-policies. As the leader ofthe WP6 (i.e. Dissemination of project results) the Public Health Agency of Swedenfacilitates easy access to information for the Project Partners and for target groups of the communication plan. The Co-Beneficiaries’ own dissemination channels and professional networkswill be mainly used for distributing information about the project. Updates, e-news and e-newsletters are accessible via the website for all Project Partners, other stakeholders and for anybody interested Antibiotic Resistance.

Internal dissemination activities (within NDPHS)

Internal activities consist of the following meetings:

  • Meetings of the NDPHS Task Group on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR TG) ( is planned thatthese meetings will be heldat least 5times during project implementation period.
  • Meetingsofthe NDPHS Committee of Senior Representatives (CSR) ( It is planned that these meetings will be held 4 timesduring project implementation period. Project results will be disseminated also at another CSR meeting that takes place after the project has finished.
  • A ministerial meeting of the NDPHS Partnership Annual Conference (PAC) (the highest decision-making body within the NDPHS; held at a ministerial level every second year ( This meeting will be held during the autumn 2015.

Aforementioned meetings are attended by experts and policy makers of the relevant field and are therefore an efficient method for updating the participants regarding the process of the NoDARSproject, supporting the exchange of knowledge, expertise and skills and also for creating partnerships and improving collaboration.

External dissemination activities

External dissemination is an on-going process and the activities regarding it will take place continuously. Information about the project and its products will be disseminated through/during:

  • The NDPHS’ regular dissemination channels: the website ( e-news ( approx. 14,000 subscribers), e-newsletter ( approx. 800 subscribers), the NDPHS Project Database ( and, possibly, a press-release ( approx. 300 subscribers);
  • Co-Beneficiaries’ own dissemination channels (websites, newsletters, etc.) and professional networks (decision-makers, representatives of governmental organizations and NGOs working on the issues concerned);
  • Relevant external events such as meetings of the Baltic Antibiotic Resistance collaborative Network (BARN) (
  • Relevant Russian, national and European conferences on combating Antibiotic Resistance attended by the Scientific Project Coordinator of the project and other co-Beneficiaries;

The results of the study will be presented to practical and scientific communities through publication of at least two articles in peer-reviewed journals and through presentations of the results on at least two scientific/practical conferences (one local and one international).

The results will be presented to the AMR Task Group to be further disseminated by the TG members within their own countries. In addition, dissemination will be done at the relevant thematic events and via electronic communication using co-Beneficiaries’ websites and professional networks.

Communication tools

In the following table main communication tools that will be used in dissemination activities are brought out.

Table 1. Communication tools.

Tool / Description
Websites / The NDPHS website (
Project Partners’ websites
e-news / approx. 14,000 subscribers
Project Partners’ e-news
e-newsletters/ newsletters / approx. 800 subscribers
Project Partners’ newsletters
Database / NDPHS Project Database:
Press-release (possibly) / approx. 300 subscribers
Events / Internal:
1) the NDPHS Partnership Annual Conference
2) meetingsof the NDPHS Committee of Senior Representatives
3) meetings of the NDPHS AMRTask Group (
4) External events that are attended by NDPHS representatives
Publications and Guidelines / Articles in peer-reviewed journals about (1) the determination of accurate resistance levels in uncomplicated UTIs and assessment of current guidelines for the treatment of such infections and (2) a comparison of carrier-rates of EBSL-producing E.coli among healthy individuals in Federation of Russia, Finland, Norway, Latvia, Poland, Sweden and Germany as an assessment of AMR-strategies in the respective countries

Indicators

Completion of the communication objectives

Communication activities will be evaluated twice during the implementation period and a concluding section about the evaluation results will be included in both, interim and final report of the NoDARS project.

Table 2 provides the main indicators for evaluating the communication activities.

Table 2.Indicators for the communication tools.

Tool / Indicator
Websites / List of websites where the information regarding the NoDARS project has been published
E-newsletters/ newsletters / Number of e-newsletters/newsletters published
E-news / Number of e-news published
Database / Date when information regarding the NoDARS project was published in database
Press-release / Number of press-releases
Events / List of events where the information regarding the NoDARS project was disseminated. Number of specialists attending these events
Publications and Guidelines / Approximate number of recipients of the publications and guidelines, and the number of articles in the publications (peer-reviewed journals) utilized.

Provisions for feedback

Regarding the feedback for communication activities, the developed guidelines will be evaluated by a questionnaire to measure their usefulness and implementation. These questionnaires will be filled-out by key actors in the target group community.

Resources

Human resources

Communication of the NoDARS project will be put into practice with the cooperation between the Public Health Agency of Swedenand the Project Partners.

As the WP6 leader, the Public Health Agency of Swedenhas the primary role in managing the communication activities and it will ensure the implementation of the communication plan. All sevenProject Partners will be involved in the process. The partners will be responsible for the visibility of the project and will identify local channels such as external websites and media.

Financial resources

All WP6 activities foreseen in the project plan have been properly budgeted and the financial resources will be made available, as required.

/ This document has been produced with the financial assistance of the European Union. The contents of this document are the sole responsibility of the NDPHS Secretariat and can under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of the European Union.

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