Commission Plans to launch a European Standardisation Panel survey

To further support the uptake of R&I results through standardisation, the Commission has signed a contract on the development and implementation of a European Standardisation Panel Survey. The work will be carried out by a consortium led by Technopolis Consulting Group Belgium and involve the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research. The Survey will help identify industry’s demand for standards as potential results of R&I projects, contribute to the assessment of how EU R&I framework programmes tackle the standardisation needs of industry, and foster awareness on the importance of standardisation for industry.

The Survey will address a large-scale population of EU industry, covering all EU Member States and will aim to reflect a balanced representation of companies of different sizes and of wide variety of technology domains.

The Survey results will ultimately support the development of recommendations for policy makers, industry representatives and standardisation bodies to improve the match between the demand of industry for R&I based standards and the current supply of such standards. The recommendations will help future beneficiaries of public R&I programmes to identify opportunities and techniques to use standardisation for valorising results from their project. The results of the survey are planned to be published in the fourth quarter of 2023.

The survey results complement the recently adopted Code of Practice on standardisation in the European Research Area. While the Code focuses on knowledge producers and the supply side of R&I based standardisation, there is a gap in understanding industry’s needs for standardisation deriving from R&I. In fact, standards may represent crucial components in entrepreneurial success. As innovations are affected by an array of demand-side factors - such as trust or interoperability - evidence related to the role in standardisation can serve as an important input for the development of innovation policy.

Standards are an important channel for the successful transfer, commercialisation and valorisation of research results. They are hence a vital part of innovation. Standards ensure compatibility and interoperability between different products, or minimum quality, performance and safety levels. They are also important in creating economies of scale and increasing efficiency in supply chains. As emphasised by the Industrial Strategy of the Commission, there are many benefits of engaging in standards development for new and emerging technologies.  Standards have the power to strengthen the economic, social and environmental value and impact of R&I projects.