What is a standard?
A standard is a voluntary document that outlines technical specifications derived from experience and technological development. It is developed through a consensus-building process that includes all relevant stakeholders with an interest in the subject matter. Once established, a standard must be formally approved by a recognised standardisation body to ensure its credibility and wide acceptance.
Standardisation contributes to facing the challenges of organisations in aspects such as exporting to new markets; the growing relevance of innovation and the digital world; training and education and finally the development of corporate social responsibility, to actively and voluntarily contribute to the social, economic and environmental improvement of society as a whole.
Standardization in R&D&I Projects
Standardisation in R&D&I projects is a powerful tool to maximise their overall impact. It plays a crucial role in promoting compatibility across different systems and technologies, ensuring the seamless integration of innovative solutions. By setting common standards, it accelerates the dissemination and transfer of knowledge within and across industries, fostering collaboration and reducing duplication of efforts. Furthermore, standardisation paves the way for innovations to enter the market more efficiently, as it provides clear frameworks for regulatory compliance and industry adoption, thus boosting the commercialisation and scalability of new technologies.
Standards are a crucial tool for valorising research results:
- Facilitating market entry for innovations:
- Enhancing user confidence:
- Codifying technological requirements.
- Enabling interoperability.
Therefore, standardisation should be considered during research and should not be seen as a technicality reserved for large companies.
Proof of the importance of standardisation in R&D&I projects is the publication of the European Commission in March 2023 of a Code of Practice on Standardization in the ERA (Recommendation 2023/498). This Code is part of a series developed by the European Commission to provide guidelines on using different tools for the transfer and valorization of knowledge generated in research and innovation projects, for example, standardization or intellectual property.
The growing 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.
Standardisation in Flexcrash
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. As the national standardization authority, and designated by the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism, UNE plays a key role in developing, implementing, and promoting standards within Spain, aligning national standards with European and international frameworks.
The main objective of UNE in Flexcrash is to contribute to the generation of new standards that can facilitate market acceptance and utilisation of the developed solutions. Additionally, the standardisation system can be used as a targeted dissemination channel towards the stakeholders represented in the standardisation committees.
UNE’s participation in the project can be divided into two main blocks of tasks.
- The first one consists in providing the consortium with starting information on the standardization landscape to ensure compatibility and interoperability with what already exists in the market through standards.
- The second one is related to the contribution to standardization and the dissemination of the project and its results. The relevant technical standardization committees identified in the previous task are contacted for disseminating the project and getting feedback from their members. In some cases, some interaction with them and different levels of participation in these technical committees is possible.
On the other hand, project results are analysed in order to decide which of them can contribute to the development of new standards. Depending on the ongoing works of the standardization committees, this may involve providing information, participating in ongoing works, submitting proposals for the modification of existing standards or promoting the elaboration of new standards.
As a result of the study of the standardisation landscape several standards relevant for the Flexcrash project have been found. They are specially to manufacturing processes such as welding and allied processes and additive manufacturing. Also, some technical committees have been identified as relevant and they can be grouped into four main areas:
- Materials: related to aluminium alloys and structures.
- Test: related to mechanical, virtual and crash tests as well as methods of testing and testing of metals.
- Manufacturing and industrial process: related to industrial and automation processes, specially welding and allied processes as well as additive manufacturing.
- Automotive sector: related to road vehicles and safety and impact testing.
This initial analysis of the standardization landscape is useful at this very early stage of the project because it reveals already existing material and promotes the alignment with current and under development standardization work, facilitating the compatibility of the outcomes with the current market practises. Project partners collaboration and their feedback have been very important and useful for this analysis.
On the other hand, the identified standards might be considered as a compliance requirement for the outputs of the project, or they could be used as guidelines.
The main conclusion of the analysis of the current standardization situation related to Flexcrash is the there is a large number of European and international technical committees, as well as of standards and standards under development related to Flexcrash project that may be useful for its development and for its future dissemination.
