Contributions from industry, research and end-users, involving experts that represent diverse stakeholders are crucial for the standardisation development. However, the standards-making process and rules are sometimes at odds with the culture and practice of research.
STAND4EU aimed to strengthen the links between research, innovation, and standardisation, ensuring that standardisation became an integral part of the European research and innovation landscape. The needs and requirements from key stakeholders were analysed to identify obstacles hampering the standardisation efforts in four technological domains: Welding, Additive Manufacturing, Smart Manufacturing, and Circular Economy.
Solutions were developed and implemented to overcome the identified obstacles, making the standards development process more efficient. The STAND4EU interface was created to facilitate the collection and sharing of information about the obstacles, associated remedies, and best practices. All the proposed solutions were validated with the relevant actors and stakeholders to transfer the methodology to a broader scale of application in other respective areas, aiming to reach sustainable development of the developed methodological approach and exploit the STAND4EU Interface globally.
The main STAND4EU objectives and phases were the following:
1. Identified and created awareness about the obstacles preventing:
- Standards implementation in research and innovation projects.
- Contribution to standardisation by research & innovation projects.
2. Developed and validated remedies to these obstacles, including:
- Solutions to foster standardisation as a means of knowledge valorisation.
- New, more agile approaches for the standard setting process (SSP).
3. Implemented solutions by establishing the STAND4EU interface to:
- Facilitate information collection and sharing about the obstacles, associated remedies, and best practices towards key stakeholders.
- Validate proposed measures to finalise the Remediation Plan.
4. Ensured sustainability and transferability through:
- Harmonised transfer of the interface methodology to a broader scale of application in other areas to exploit the STAND4EU Interface globally.
