NEWS
The 32nd meeting of CEN-CENELEC Working Group of the Technical Boards ‘STAIR’ (STAndards, Innovation and Research) took place on Thursday 24 February. STAIR is the focal point within CEN and CENELEC for any matter related to integrating standardization with innovation and research.
CEN and CENELEC published a new Position Paper to respond to the Action Plan presented by the European Commission on synergies between civil, defence and space industries.
On Friday 11 February, CEN and CENELEC were happy to host Kerstin Jorna, Director General of the European Commission’s Directorate General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW), at their Brussels headquarters.
On Wednesday, 9 February, Elena Santiago Cid, CEN and CENELEC’s Director General, participated as a speaker to the high-level panel “Standardisation in support of the twin transition of industrial SMEs”. The debate was organised by the European Commission in the framework of the EU Industry Days, Europe’s flagship annual event dedicated to the European industry. In particular, the 2022 edition was focussed on the industry’s role in the EU’s twin digital and green transition.
The Bulgarian Institute for Standardization (BDS) and the Romanian Standards Association (ASRO), in partnership with five universities, recently finalised the implementation of the two-year project STUNED - Standards Teaching in University Education, funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Commission.
Ingvild Næss Stub is the new Director for international relations and business development at Standards Norway. Ms Stub was previously State Secretary at the Prime Minister's Office since 2015, and, among other things, advised the Prime Minister on European policy.
The European Commission issued on 2 February its long-awaited Strategy on Standardization, which was accompanied by a proposal for an amendment to the Regulation on standardization, a report on its implementation, and the 2022 AUWP for European standardization. ETUC welcomes the standardization strategy as it addresses most of the issues we had raised in our contribution to the consultation during the summer.
In 2021, the European Commission launched the latest Research Framework programme: Horizon Europe. Horizon Europe will run from 2021 to 2027 with a budget of 95.5 billion Euros targeting researchers and innovators in pursuit of Europe’s strategic goals, with a focus on the green and digital transition.
CEN and CENELEC are fully committed to ensuring that, through their standards, goods and services are equally accessible to all. In this context, they just released the updated “CEN-CENELEC Protocol on accessibility following a Design for All approach in standardization”. The protocol outlines the procedure to help technical bodies decide whether accessibility, with a Design for All approach, should be addressed when developing or revising a standardization deliverable.
As part of its efforts towards gender responsive standardization, the UNECE's Gender Responsive Standards Initiative (GRSI) has launched a new survey and invites all Standards Bodies to take a few minutes to share their experiences related to Gender responsive standards practices and training needs. The survey, developed by UNECE GRSI’s Project Team 1 ‘Training and Best Practice’, has been designed to learn about current gender and standards practices and identify potential knowledge gaps and training needs within standards bodies.