CESSDA begun by creating a new visual identity and the various types of templates displaying CESSDA’s new corporate identity were produced in the first half of 2015 and shared within CESSDA, followed by a leaflet and a poster. The main achievement in communications for 2015 was the launch of an entirely new website on 1 June 2015 (www.cessda.net). The CESSDA Training Twitter account was then rebranded as @CESSDA_Data in time for the launch of the CESSDA SaW project in October 2015 and currently serves as an account for CESSDA as a whole, reporting not only on CESSDA Training, but also on other activities related to CESSDA and its projects. CESSDA also began work on a broad communication strategy, planned to be adopted in 2016.

CESSDA carried out a maturity modelling exercise showing achieved and planned activities across all listed communication areas, once in 2014 and a second time in August 2015. The second maturity exercise showed considerable improvement. The CESSDA maturity model is updated on a yearly basis. The first task set to the Communications Group was for each Service Provider represented in the group to carry out their own maturity modelling exercise for the communication activities of their organisations. This exercise was carried out in the first half of 2015, and was intended to help CESSDA to find out about its Service Providers in terms of their communication activities and objectives, and thus establish where CESSDA could be an added value for achieving those goals, and where CESSDA’s work, as the hub, should be focused (e.g. international workshops, web, storytelling through different media & academic publications, etc.). In concrete terms, the aim of this exercise was to prepare for the next stage: writing the Terms of Reference of the Communications Group, which began in autumn 2015 and which will set the scope of the group and help plan and prioritise future work.

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