COST Connect | Action for Standards

The growing adoption of European standards by the rest of the world shows the increasing influence of European regulation in the world. This so-called “Brussels effect” shows the ability of Europe to set standards that will be adopted by companies, states and other institutions around the world.

This achievement is the result of a dynamic environment within Europe for establishing standards and their appropriation by European Policy makers to improve the efficiency of policies in many different fields such as privacy, safety, health, environment, and innovation (among other fields).

There is a need for an established standardisation process, which is organised at the European level by standardisation bodies, namely CEN CENELEC and ETSI, and it provides voluntary European Standards and related product and services.

Although the industry usually is at the centre of standardisation developments, several European initiatives took place in order to get the research community engaged in standards. The Joint Initiative on Standardisation (JIS) project and the “Putting Science into Standards” workshops led by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission and the STAIR platform, BRIDGIT2 project, and CEN Workshop Agreements from CEN CENELEC are good examples.

Recently, the COST Association connected to these initiatives as it shares some objectives. From a research coordination perspective, the COST Actions aim to avoid duplication of efforts by establishing pan European forums (including participants from industry), reducing isolation of relevant resources in S&T, building critical mass for joint efforts by creating consensus around priorities to engage in, providing tangible impact on industry, and working on novel topics that are not (yet) covered by standards.

Yet, the challenge remains on how to fully exploit the potential synergies between COST Actions and standardisation activities.

This “Action for Standards” COST Connect in collaboration with CEN CENELEC and the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission will address this purpose by clarifying why research should support the development of standards at an early stage, showcasing good practices (and challenges) of COST Actions engaging in standards, and providing lessons learned for standardisers and COST communities. On the one hand, this COST Connect will aim to facilitate the dialogue between the relevant COST Action communities and their counterparts in standardization bodies. On the other hand, the event will explore ways in which the organisers can contribute to facilitate the voice of research in standards at the pan-European level.

Further information about this COST Connect workshop can be requested by email to COST.Connect15@cost.eu.

Attendance to this event is by invitation only.

Location: COST Association, Brussels, Belgium