How can standardisation help to promote and facilitate the commercialisation of Fatigue4Light solutions?
What is standardisation?
Standardisation is a fundamental competitive intelligence tool for the access of companies’ products and services to European and International markets, as well as to anticipate the evolution of the conditions of access to them.
“Standards bridge the gap between research and market acceptance. Together with stakeholders, we have developed the Code of Practice to ensure that the results of research and innovation create marketable solutions and respond to societal challenges.” These words from Mariya Gabriel, European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, summarize the objective of Recommendations 2023/498, Code of Practice on standardisation in the European Research Area, which the European Union published on March 1st 2023.
The generation of new technical norms or standards is increasingly recognized as an intelligent way to transfer, commercialize and add value to the results of research and innovation, constituting a vital part of the latter. The fact that innovations can be supported by new standards helps to make new methods, tests, technologies or materials known to a large number of potential users, generating trust in them, promoting their use, their compatibility and integration with new and future developments, facilitating their use and acceptance by industry and public administrations. In this way, standardization is mentioned, among other documents, in the European Policy on the Valuation of Knowledge (COM/2022/391 final) and in the Spanish Law on Science, Technology and Innovation (Law 17/2022).
European standards supporting research and innovation
Standardisation is a key and highly-valued activity of research and innovation projects helping to bridge the gap between research and market and incrementing the possibilities of market up-take of technological innovative solutions.
In this sense, the new Code of Practice includes a series of recommendations aimed at researchers and innovators in order to help paving the way for the deployment of research and innovation projects, including those financed with public funds such as the Horizon Europe programme. The recommendations include considering tangible standardization activities in the projects, with their objectives and resources, collaborating with, and involving, when necessary, national, European and international Standardization Bodies, establishing indicators, integrating standardization and intellectual property strategies, among others.
However, it recognizes that much remains to be done in terms of awareness, recognition and policies, which is why it also includes recommendations for Universities and Research and Innovation Centers, on the creation of standardization strategies, indicators, systems of recognition of professional careers, training, and for national governments, in terms of promoting standardization as a means of valorizing knowledge.
Standardisation in Fatigue4Light
UNE, the Spanish Association for Standardisation, is leading the activities related with standards in the Fatigue4Light project. The main objective is to increase the visibility and impact of the project and contribute to the acceptance and utilisation by the market and the industry of the solutions developed by Fatigue4Light’s consortium.
Within Fatigue4Light, UNE is collaborating in the accomplishment of all the above aims by advising the project on the existing standards which can help the work of its Technical work packages and finally fostering the diffusion of the results of the project by publishing standard documents on the frame of the European Committee for Standardization (CEN).
In Spain, UNE is the body legally designated to develop and disseminate technical norms or standards, and as such is the national member of European (CEN, CENELEC and ETSI) and international (ISO and IEC) organizations., managing more than 960 Technical Standardization Committees in which more than 15,000 Spanish experts participate.
