The 2023 edition of the CEN and CENELEC Standards+Innovation Awards was presented on 26 October 2023 as part of the EU stakeholder event “Making research results work for society”.
The event was organized in the frame of the European Commission's awareness raising campaign on knowledge valorisation, which aims at promoting the latest policy developments on knowledge valorisation and showcasing how research and innovation results can be transformed into societal and economic benefits.
Nominations for these awards came from the CEN and CENELEC national members. This year, 15 nominations were presented in the Project category, 9 in the Individual Researcher category, and 9 in the new Young Researcher category.
The winner of the ‘Project’ category is the project Next-generation Dynamic Digital EPCs for Enhanced Quality and User Awareness (D^2EPC), nominated by the Cyprus Organisation for Standardisation (CYS).
The D^2EPC project worked on a novel rating system for assessing the energy performance of buildings considering not only the energy efficiency aspects, but also indicators related to economic factors, human comfort, and general well-being to provide a more holistic evaluation of a building's energy performance. The project has promoted the creation of the new CEN/TC 371/WG 5 ‘Operational rating of energy performance of buildings’, which is currently working on a prEN on ‘Energy Performance of Buildings — Operational rating — Requirements for assessing Operational rating’ based on the project outcomes. Moreover, two use cases of digital twins created during the project have been submitted to CEN/TC 442/WG 9 ‘Digital twins in built environment’, to be considered in a prCEN/TR on ‘Building information modelling — Digital twins applied to the built environment — Use cases’. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 892984.
The project representative, Dr. Prof. Paris FOKAIDES of Frederick University in Cyprus, commented: “Standardization is crucial for driving innovation and ensuring the efficiency and sustainability of our built environments. I am honoured to be part of shaping tomorrow's sustainable building standards.”
The winner of the ‘Individual Researcher’ category is Elsa BATISTA, nominated by Instituto Português da Qualidade (IPQ). Her latest research has been dedicated to standards for measurements in the drug delivery, contributing to the development of several international standards, such as the ISO 8655 series on piston-operated volumetric apparatus. Elsa is also an ambassador for the link of metrology and standardization, and she provides training to raise awareness on standardization in the metrology community.
On the importance of standardization Elsa BATISTA commented: “Standardization is an activity that allows the harmonization and simplification of procedures leading to global acceptance of products, services and process. In the field of flow measurements, especially in the health domain, standardization has been a driving force for the development of methods and technology, allowing the improvement of instruments requirements and measurement results. The standards developed in the last 20 years resulted in a significant improvement of patient safety and in a significant reduction of morbidity and mortality.”
The winner of the ‘Young Researcher’ category is Sweta MALIK, nominated by the National Standards Authority of Ireland (NSAI). Sweta is currently a PhD candidate at Insight Centre for Data Analytics, National University of Ireland, Galway. Her research work focused on Standards, Policy, and Regulatory Frameworks for Efficient local electrical energy markets, with a specific emphasis on standards. In particular, as part of her research she conducted a comprehensive review of existing standards, such as CENELEC EN 50438, IEC 62746, and IEC 62559, involving literature review methodology to gather insights and identify gaps in existing standards.
Sweta MALIK commented: “I am deeply honoured to receive this award. With my research I was able to identify gaps in the current standards related to local energy markets and, thus, to propose innovative frameworks that address aspects like peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading and network constraints, accelerating the transition to a sustainable energy future in line with the UN SDGs.”
Finally, a special, fourth category, the Technical Body Officer awards, will be presented as part of the CEN-CENELEC Technical Body Officers seminar on 4 December 2023. This award acknowledges CEN and CENELEC Technical Body Officers (Secretary, Chair, Convenor) who actively and successfully collaborated with researchers/innovators within his/her technical body.
The full list of 2023 nominees can be found here.
