SBS reinforces cooperation with all actors in the standardisation community On 19th October, SBS organised its 2016 Annual Conference on “Smart standardisation for SMEs”. This second edition, as part of a series of annual conferences on the standardisation process, its impact on SMEs and its benefits, focussed on “Reinforcing the cooperation within the standardisation community”. With SMEs at the centre of discussions, the speakers addressed the importance of standards in boosting competitiveness for SMEs, the value of being involved in the standardisation process, and the shift from European to international standardisation.
The discussions covered the importance of standards in boosting innovation and competitiveness of SMEs and their internationalisation, as well as an assessment of the standards regulation and the voluntary nature of standards. President Gunilla Almgren confirmed that SBS will keep insisting on the need for mandatory standards to be accessible and less costly for SMEs. Standards are increasingly developed at operating at local level. It is therefore crucial for smaller companies to get involved, or to be represented, at all levels (national, European or international level) to ensure that the developed standards are SMEfriendly.
Best practices put forward at twinning exercise in
On 4th October, SBS organised its first twinning exercise in Berlin in collaboration with the German and Czech National Standardisation Organisations (NSOs), namely DIN (German Institute for Standardisation) and ÚNMZ (Czech office for standards, metrology and testing). The objective was to raise awareness among NSOs about the value of further involving SMEs in standardisation, and to share experiences on SME initiatives. Both DIN and ÚNMZ shared and identified good practices with the participants.
One of the key points was the necessity to involve SMEs at national level for the development of national positions to then be raised at European and international level. Carrying out broad consultations at national level was considered a suitable solution to avoid issuing standards with unfit market relevance regarding the needs of the majority of stakeholders, including SMEs.
Moreover, the role of mirror committees in monitoring the activities of CEN Technical Committees (TC) was highlighted as well as the registration of national formal votes, including the ones coming from NSOs that do not actively and/or physically take part in TC meetings.