Aligning Communications with Impact: A Strategy for European Climate Observation Networks
The Climate and Ocean Observation European Metrology Network launched in pilot phase as a 32-member European research partnership with an undeveloped communications infrastructure.
The Challenge
The Climate and Ocean Observation European Metrology Network (EMN) launched as a 32-member European research partnership spanning national metrology institutes across the EU and beyond. It had already articulated its own institutional objectives — member institutes should feel supported and valued, stakeholders should see EMN members as suitable research partners — but this was a network talking to itself in its own terms, not a message built around where different external audiences actually stood, and what would resonate given their own position.
The real gap was reciprocal, audience-specific value. Five distinct primary audiences — organisations operating instruments and monitoring networks, organisations processing raw measurements into usable climate and ocean products, the funding and coordinating bodies who commission research, data service developers and archives, and end users from SMEs to policymakers — each stood in a different position to answer the same underlying question: how can we help each other? Without that differentiation, the network risked remaining legible only to itself, rather than raising its profile with the funders, policymakers, and wider climate science community whose engagement it actually depended on.
The NPL-led communications contract required not just delivery of assets, but the design of a complete communications function — and messaging framework — that could sustain itself across a distributed network of partners with different languages, institutional cultures, and communications capacities.
The Approach
I led the development and delivery of the network's first formal communications strategy, built through structured consultation with partners across member nations including facilitated workshops at Annual General Meetings in Brussels, Berne, and Paris. The strategy process itself served as a network-building exercise, creating shared ownership of the communications framework before any outputs were produced.
Central to the strategy was a shift from institution-first to audience-first messaging: the five primary stakeholder groups above, plus two secondary audiences (the wider European and international metrology community, and the general public), were each mapped against their own motivations, influence, and needs — reframed consistently around that single reciprocal question rather than around what the network wanted to say about itself. This sat alongside three key themes threaded through all communications: that decision makers require quality-assured information to trust climate and ocean data; that the network exists to enable partnerships between metrology institutes and the observation community, not just to represent metrology's interests; and that it is Europe's contribution to a global effort, harmonised with international climate and ocean monitoring networks rather than working in isolation.
Delivery encompassed:
- Strategy development: a full communications strategy aligned to the network's scientific objectives and the European Commission's visibility requirements, developed iteratively with partner input and built around the audience-first messaging framework above
- Website: designed and launched a news and blog project website to serve as the network's primary public-facing channel
- Publications workflow: established an end-to-end publications procedure covering drafting, partner review, approval, and distribution — creating consistent quality and speed across a geographically distributed team
- Newsletter: produced and distributed a regular membership newsletter to keep 32+ partner organisations informed and engaged between meetings
- SharePoint infrastructure: managed a communications-facing SharePoint environment to support internal coordination and asset management across the partnership
The Outcome
The EMN communications contract was delivered to the satisfaction of EURAMET and the European Commission, with the strategy and outputs cited as successfully raising the network's profile and supporting partner engagement. The publications procedure and newsletter established a repeatable communications rhythm that continued beyond the initial contract period.
Critically, the participatory strategy development process ensured that the communications framework had genuine buy-in across a partnership where no single institution had authority to direct the others — a complex stakeholder management challenge that required both diplomatic skill and communications expertise.
Relevance to your organisation
This project demonstrates the ability to design and build communications capability in complex multi-institutional environments — not just deliver assets, but establish the frameworks, workflows, and relationships that make sustained communications possible at scale, and to translate an organisation's internal objectives into messages that actually serve the external audiences it depends on. It is directly applicable to any organisation working across distributed partnerships or intergovernmental structures.
32 member nations · 3 facilitated workshops · Brussels, Berne & Paris · Delivered to EU Commission satisfaction