Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>EU-funded projects often use clustering or sister projects communities as a dissemination and communication strategy to promote their outputs and exchange knowledge. Maintaining such communities with meaningful impact on projects, during and following their life cycle, may be challenging. This chapter aims to provide answers and best practices to questions related to creating, managing, and maintaining clusters, engaging projects, ensuring sustainability, and supporting efficient joint exploitation activities. Focusing on the latter, it draws insights from the H2020 BES Cluster (H2020 Border External Security Cluster), which consists of security-related H2020 and Horizon Europe projects collaborating to support communication and dissemination activities, exchange good practices and methodologies, and explore possibilities to combine pilot activities. The chapter provides a comprehensive review of the outcomes and impact of the H2020 BES Cluster projects, highlighting their significance and potential for further exploitation. Moreover, it discusses strategies for early exploitation and effective dissemination for projects still in progress. Although the H2020 BES Cluster is border security-related, its proposed methodology and practices can apply to different projects with minor customisation. This chapter aspires to introduce and strengthen innovations and improvements to the security and border control system within the EU by promoting a collaborative environment and drawing attention to the tangible results and benefits of EU-funded projects.</jats:p>