Code of Practice on Standardisation in the ERA

On March 2023 the European Commission published a Code of Practice on Standardisation in the ERA (Recommendation 2023/498). This Code is part of a series with which the EC wants to provide guidelines to use different tools for the transfer and valorization of the knowledge generated in research and innovation projects, for example, standardisation or intellectual property.

Recommendations are addressed in three blocks to different stakeholders: Universities and Research Organizations, researchers and innovators preparing new Horizon projects, and the Governments of the Member States.

In the words of the European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, Mariya Gabriel: “Standards close the gap between research and market acceptance. Together with stakeholders, we have developed the Code of Practice to ensure that research and innovation results create marketable solutions and respond to societal challenges.”

The growth of new standards is increasingly recognized as an intelligent way to transfer, commercialize and add value to the results of research and innovation activities, becoming a natural part of them. Innovations being supported by new standards help make new methods, tests, technologies, products or materials known to a large number of potential users and customers, generating confidence in them, promoting their use, their compatibility and integration with new and future developments, facilitating their acceptance by the industry and public authorities.

In the NICKEFFECT project, UNE (Spanish Association for Standardisation) is the partner in charge of leading the standardisation activities, which align with the EC recommendations. These activities are focused on: 1. Use existing standards, and 2. Generate new standards. In this sense, the deliverable to be developed in this project, D 7.3 Report on standardisation landscape and contribution to standards, has already been developed by UNE and submitted to the EC last 31st May 2023. The standardisation activities will continue until the end of the project.