NEWS

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.

CEN and CENELEC and their Members are fully committed to encouraging and supporting all sectors of society and industry to participate in European standardization work and are willing to collaborate with relevant like-minded organisations all across the board.

The ETUC participated in January 2022 in the European Commission’s targeted consultation on ‘Standardization Governance’, which aimed at gathering stakeholders’ views on good governance principles in the European standardization system (ESS).

Since 2019, PKN has been successfully organizing workshops for Young Professionals in Standardization, with the aim to extend the practical knowledge of standardization and to promote greater involvement in the work of European and international standardization organizations. These workshops are intended for young persons actively involved in the activities of PKN's Technical Committees.

Following its cartoon “Standards@Rail”, CEN & CENELEC conclude the European Year of Rail with a new campaign to share with the European citizens the importance of European standards in the daily life of trains and railways infrastructure.  

In April, the online workshop ‘Organ on Chip: Towards Standardization’ took place as the 2021 edition of Putting Science into Standards (PSIS) in collaboration with the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission.

The 2021 edition of the CEN and CENELEC Standards+Innovation Technical Body Officer Awards, a biennial award presented to a technical body officer who actively and successfully collaborated with researchers/innovators within his/her technical body, was presented in Brussels on Tuesday 7 December 2021.

The EU regulation on European standardization (1025/2012) has certainly contributed to making the European Standardization System more inclusive. However, while at the European level significant efforts have been deployed to facilitate the direct access of societal stakeholders, trade unions still face many challenges when trying to participate at the national level.