Supporting European Experts Presence in International Standardisation Activities in ICT

Project Information

StandICT.eu

Grant agreement ID: 780439

DOI

10.3030/780439

Project closed

EC signature date 25 October 2017

Start date 1 January 2018

End date 29 February 2020

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

Total cost

€ 2 000 000,00

EU contribution

€ 2 000 000,00

Coordinated by

TRUST-IT SERVICES LIMITED
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - StandICT.eu (Supporting European Experts Presence in International Standardisation Activities in ICT)

Reporting period: 2019-01-01 to 2020-02-29

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The objectives of the project are multiple, where the overarching goal is to attain global recognition of StandICT.eu as the Go-to-Platform to understand how Europe influences ICT standardisation efforts. StandICT.eu wishes to create awareness on the importance of standards for digital transformation, interoperability and open markets through EU and international SDOs and SSOs. Communities covering the DSM building-block technologies are key to reaching EU specialists, who can become active players in the standards-making process and thus boost impacts. Having an online, fully functional and easily accessible facility for open call submissions and evaluations and an interactive map of priority areas ripe for standardisation are the key to enabling EU ICT standards specialists. STANDICT.eu thereby offers strong motivations for targeted stakeholders from SMEs, large enterprises, research and public organisations that are not only financial but also strategic and sustainable drivers, with the support of a carefully selected External Advisory Group (EAG).
The specific objectives are:
Obj. 1 – Map and monitor ongoing standardisation activities in EU and globally
Obj. 2 - Design and Implement an Open Call Management
Obj. 3 - Launch and Manage a continuous Open Call process on priorities identified
Obj. 4 – Build an engaged community around EU ICT Standardisation
Obj. 5 - Develop a sustainable path for the initiative

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The first twelve months put into place an effective WP1 project management coordination activity which also involved the setting up of the External Advisory Group (EAG) in WP1. The fact that the project consortium is a lean structure was compensated by the immense management activity required to engage with the external pool of evaluators and the contractual issues linked to the successful applicants who responded to the open calls.
WP2 Prioritisation of global standards for EU meant setting up the Global ICT standardisation watch and interaction with SDOs & prioritisation of EU participation in ICT standardisation activities. This activity has been subsequently revived with a concentration around Artificial Intelligence, IoT & Big Data. MS2.2 Prioritised list of participation opportunities. MS2.3-M2.5 2nd, 3rd & 4th prioritised list of participation opportunities (months 7,9 & 11).
The effort dedicated under WP3 Management of the open call for participation in SDO activities corresponded to putting together the StandICT.eu “On-line Factory”. This involved having a fully operational technical workspace that would allow for seamless communication which is considered the Go-to platform to help reinforce European presence in the international ICT standardisation scene & consolidate a trajectory of the ICT standardisation landscape that looks beyond 2020.

All running on an on-line workable procedure for the five hundred plus (500+) StandICT.eu community. Two milestones M3.1 StandICT.eu Open Facility online and M3.2 list of experts contributing to SDOs and standards.
WP4 Communication open call promotion and impact began a continuous strategy of communication and dissemination strategy, community and stakeholder building. As you can appreciate from the list of events indicated in this report, StandICT.eu has been visible at several key events to help strategise on different impact areas – not only to help promote the regular calls but to also engage better the communities in terms of potential future ICT standard expert applicants and better understand call priorities and topics as well as sounding out potential EAG members and experts.
Deliverables in the reporting period are: D4.1 Plan for Communication & Stakeholder engagement & promotion of the open call and the D4.2 SDO convergence and stakeholder report. Corresponding milestones achieved are:M4.1 The StandICT.eu web portal, M4.2 M4.3 & M4.4 1st, 2nd 3rd SDO synergies and stakeholder workshop, months 3,6 & 9.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Impact 1: Identify EU ICT standardisation priority areas and propose EU intervention
STANDICT.eu has conducted regular monitoring of priority technologies and topics, comparing those signalled by the Rolling Plan, EC requests and insights from the EAG. Key findings have fed into the 4 OCs organised so far by the project.

Impact 2: Increase impact of EU priorities on international ICT standardisation
STANDICT.eu plays a key role in boosting the impacts of standardisation from an EU perspective, by enabling experienced and new technology specialists to become active players in the standards-making process. The cascading grants give opportunities to network with peers and high-level specialists, sustain contributions after the end of project funding.

Impact 3: Establish a sustainable facility to support and increase participation of European standardisation specialists in international ICT standardisation activities
A central scope of StandICT.eu was to implement a transparent, robust, user-friendly, easily maintainable platform for sustaining the participation of European specialists to international ICT standardisation activities. This goal has been successfully achieved already from the 1st call (March 2018). All in all, the StandICT.eu platform constitutes a solid foundation on which to generate impact in 2019 and to build the sustainability path envisaged for the initiative.

Impact 4: Ensure timely contributions to international standardisation activities
Stakeholder workshops, particularly ETSI Security Week and ICT2018, have underscored the need to overcome the current defragmentation of international standards, remove outdated standards and replace them with updated standards for ICT and cyber. STANDICT.eu has already ensured that the financial incentive and the industrial competitiveness are key milestones to build on the momentum gained in year one.

Impact 5: Establish synergies with relevant EU and nationally funded initiatives
STANDICT.eu draws on its networks and EAG members to prioritise the setting-up of synergies with relevant EU and nationally funded initiatives.

Impact 6: Draft a strategy for consolidation of standards and improvement of SDOs’ and SSOs’ cooperation.
STANDICT.eu has gained fresh insights into the evolving standards landscape through its stakeholder engagement, links to EU and international SDOs and SSOs, and through the EAG. These insights form the foundations for on-going work towards facilitating greater cooperation across standardisation organisations. This includes key insights to avoid overlapping of work and fragmentation, encouraging greater awareness and focused dialogue on complementary families of standards to address the diverse requirements of ICT sectors.

Impact 7: Reduce the gap between SDOs, SSOs and open source communities
STANDICT.eu has established links across all major SDOs and SSOs in Europe and globally, drawing on connections established through partner networks, the EAG and related work being carried out in partner and other EU projects.

Impact 8: Set-up and maintain a website for accessing up-to-date information on ongoing standardisation for the five priority areas.
www.standict.eu is designed to offer fresh insights on ICT standardisation and key benefits, such as updates from SDOs and SSOs, inputs from the EAG, including a showcase, information about the external experts (EPE). The website complements regular communications on STANDICT.eu LinkedIn and Twitter.

5th Open Call of StandICT.eu