In September, a report and a set of recommendations, produced by the Workstream 3 on inclusiveness in national standardisation of the High-Level Forum on European standardisation (HLF), was published after receiving the endorsement of all members of the HLF.
The workstream saw the participation of around 20 organisations, including national governments, European standardisation organisations, European Commission, industry and societal stakeholders.
The publication of the report and the recommendations is a great result for SBS, as co-leaders of the workstream along with CEN-CENELEC, and lead drafters of the two documents. The report and recommendations are the final result of a series of questionnaires, one-to-one interviews and workshops that brought together representatives from national governments, national standardisation bodies (NSBs), SMEs, industry, societal stakeholders and academia.
The report analyses in detail several main aspects of inclusiveness and participation of all kinds of stakeholders in standardisation at national level, namely:
- Conditions and measures for stakeholder access
- Conditions and measures for balanced and effective participation of all stakeholders already involved in national standardisation
- Obstacles and proposals for access and participation
- Existing national best practices
The report is accompanied by a set of targeted and concrete recommendations, aimed at European Commission, national standardisation bodies, national governments and stakeholders, to boost access and participation and make national standardisation more inclusive and more representative of the needs and interests of all the different stakeholder communities.
