Brussels, 14/03/2008 (Agence Europe) - In a communication entitled “Towards an increased contribution from standardisation to innovation in Europe”, published on 11 March, the European Commission stresses that standardisation can make an important contribution to the development of sustainable industrial policy, unlock the potential of innovative markets and strengthen the position of the European economy through more efficient exploitation of its knowledge basis. It presents concrete objectives for standardisation and the use of standards, identifies the most important challenges faced, and consolidates on-going efforts and proposed measures to be launched both by relevant stakeholders and by the Commission. The Commission identifies two key elements for focusing EU standardisation policy on innovation: - commitment to market-led standardisation and to the voluntary use of standards, and the inclusion of new knowledge in standards or access to standardisation by all interested stakeholders, SMEs and also consumers and researchers.
Given that standardisation must adapt to growing international competition in standards-setting from emerging powers, which consider standardisation an important strategic asset, the Commission proposes to all stakeholders - member states, industry, users, and standards bodies in particular - key elements for focusing EU standardisation policy in support of innovation and competitiveness. The intention is to increase the impact of Europe in global standardisation, to facilitate the inclusion of new knowledge in standards, to make effective the access to standardisation to all stakeholders, especially SMEs, to accelerate the uptake of standards by users, and to reform the infrastructure and procedures of European standardisation in order to render it more supportive to innovation.
As a result, the Commission expects standardisation to make an important contribution to the following priority actions for innovation and competitiveness: - sustainable industrial policy. By facilitating the uptake of eco-innovation and environmental technologies, standardisation plays an important role for this policy, aimed at improving the energy and resource efficiency of products, processes and services and the competitiveness of European industry; - lead market initiative. Standardisation is one of the key elements for the success of the lead market initiative which aims to accelerate the emergence of innovative market areas such as eHealth, sustainable construction, recycling and renewable energy. A European lead in developing globally accepted standards would facilitate the growth of these markets both in Europe and abroad; - public procurement. The appropriate use of standards in public procurement may foster innovation, while providing administrations with the tools needed to fulfil their tasks; - and the integration of information and communication technology (ICT) in industry and administrations. Standards are essential for improving the competitive position of the European economy through more rational and effective use of ICTs.
We recall that standardisation is based on voluntary cooperation among industry, consumers and public authorities. It aims to develop technical specifications based on consensus. In the EU, standards are developed by the European standards organisations, CEN (European Committee for Standardisation), CENELEC (European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardisation) and ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute). The Commission's communication is available at: http: //ec.europa.eu/enterprise/standards_policy/index_en.htm. (E.H.)