The Vienna Principles have been defined by a working group of the Open Access Network Austria (OANA). The collection of 12 principles represents a model for scholarly communication in the 21st century, with the aim of creating a widespread discussion towards a shared vision of the scholarly communication system of the future. As such, they are highly relevant to dissemination of research. 

According to Beaufort, there are three levels of disseminating research results to the public. 

Wilson et al. performed an extensive survey of conceptual dissemination frameworks in health sciences and social sciences. Of the 33 included frameworks that were deemed detailed enough to be actually used in practice, 28 were either implicitly or explicitly based on one or more of three theories: persuasive communication, diffusion of innovation and social marketing.