Standards (1) play a critical role in supporting EU policies and legislation. The European standardisation system is governed by the Regulation on European standardisation (2) and implemented through the public-private-partnership with the European Standardisation Organisations (ESOs) and their members. Its uniqueness lies in the use of harmonised European Standards. When referenced in the Official Journal and when used, harmonised European Standards may provide manufacturers across the Single Market with a presumption of conformity with the requirements of harmonised EU legislation. The Commission stressed the importance of standardisation in the Communication “Shaping Europe’s Digital Future”(3) issued in February 2020, and in the Communication “An EU Strategy on Standardisation. Setting global standards in support of a resilient, green and digital EU single market” issued in February 2022. The recently adopted strategy focuses on five pillars for action, including strengthening and leveraging the EU standardisation system; improving the governance of the ESOs; supporting the EU’s leading position as global standards-setter; exploiting cutting-edge innovation to foster standardisation; and ensuring future standardisation expertise through education and skills.
Innovation and technology adoption provide critical support to the EU to face the challenges of a changing geo-political landscape, ageing society, digital transformation and climate change. EU policy making relies on standards and technical specifications to reap the benefits of broader, more interoperable markets and systems, and greater network effects. ICT technical specifications ensure the interoperability of digital technologies and form the cornerstone of an effective Digital Single Market.
ICT standardisation has dramatically changed over the last decades. Alongside the traditional standardisation organisations, specialised and mostly global fora and consortia have emerged as world-leading ICT standard development bodies that have developed the vast majority of standards for the internet, the World Wide Web and more recently for cloud computing, data processing and analysis and blockchain.
The Rolling Plan points to where ICT standardisation is needed
The Rolling Plan is part of the EU Standardisation Strategy (4). It addresses technology areas in need of ICT standards and explores the role that standards and technical specifications can play in achieving the policy objectives. It reaches out to the ESOs, CEN, CENELEC and ETSI and the global standard development organisations that can respond to the proposed actions and support the respective policy objectives with standardisation deliverables. The Commission publishes the Rolling Plan for ICT Standardisation to consolidate the different ICT standardisation needs and activities in support of EU policies into a single document.
The Annual Union Work Programme (AUWP) for European standardisation is another EU planning tool that is more high-level and not only focused on ICT. It is adopted by a Commission Decision in accordance with Article 8 of the EU regulation 1025/2012 and “shall identify strategic priorities for European standardisation, taking into account Union long-term strategies for growth. It shall indicate the European standards and European standardisation deliverables that the Commission intends to request from the European standardisation organisations in accordance with Article 10”.
The European multi-stakeholder platform on ICT standardisation (MSP) is a group of experts set-up by Commission Decision 2011/C349/04 to advise the Commission on all matters related to ICT standardisation. The MSP comprises representatives of EU Member States and EFTA countries, together with other relevant stakeholders, including standards developing organisations, industry, SMEs and societal stakeholders in the area of ICT standardisation. Its tasks include, among other things, providing advice on the content of the Rolling Plan and on the ICT technical specifications to be identified by the Commission for referencing in public procurement (Regulation EU 1025/2012, Art. 13 and 14).
In addition there are a number of other Commission technical advisory groups that are involved in standardisation In a number of cases they come under sectorial regulation (e.g. energy, environment, trade and transport) and these are referenced in the Rolling Plan as appropriate.
The Rolling Plan facilitates the implementation of policy objectives
A key objective of the Rolling Plan is to create awareness of the importance of ICT standards in the context of policy making. Another objective is to promote the use and uptake of standards in general in order to increase ICT interoperability in those policy areas identified as needing ICT standardisation activities. Standards and technical specifications in ICT ensure interoperability and promote open ICT ecosystems. Standardisation may therefore play an important role in promoting the uptake of new technologies or the transformation of technologies and systems into new, innovative complex systems, including ICT technologies, and combining them with other technologies and technology layers.
With the emergence of new technologies and ICT domains like artificial intelligence, big data, robotics, blockchain/DLT, cloud computing and IoT, the importance of standardisation goes beyond interoperability required for completing the Digital Single Market. Given the fast pace of change in our world and its possible implications for our societies and work force, EU policymaking aims to reap the maximum benefits from digital transformation, while protecting our European values from possible adverse effects. In some instances, the availability of standards can become a precondition for implementing policy or legislation. The safety and security of ‘smart’ products, automated devices, and IoT, together with the reliability and validity of artificial intelligence, data and privacy protection, are all challenges that may require standards to be developed and used for regulatory or public policy purposes.
Currently, ICT standards have played a paramount role in fighting the pandemic. They are also at the heart of the digital transformation that is needed to convert our economy to a low emission, circular one.
Once the relevant standardisation activities, specific standards or technical specifications needed to support a policy or legislation have been developed, it is important that they are widely disseminated, used and implemented. It is also important that the policy contexts, in which specific standards are to be used, are highlighted with broad stakeholder involvement, and that there is awareness of the importance, benefit and need of using the standards within the policy contexts. All this is essential to maintaining the continuous community conversation of innovation and improvement cycles that this living document is intended to facilitate.
The Rolling Plan bridges between research and standardisation
Research is a rich source for new standards or standards components and for applying available standards in advanced technology contexts. The new knowledge resulting from publicly funded research and innovation programmes can be included in new or improved standards, contributing both to the implementation of the research outcomes and the usage of standards. Over the years, many European ICT research and pilot projects under EU R&D Framework Programmes have used standards or contributed to their development. EU funded pilot projects are also an important tool to test standards and provide feedback to SDOs for improvement. Initiatives linking ICT standardisation and ICT R&I appear to be most effective when carried out at the research planning stage. Standardisation awareness is therefore essential in the research life cycle. Standardisation bodies have partially set up links into research activities for facilitating the uptake of standardisation deliverables in research projects and the transfer of research results into standardisation. Research support actions can also contribute to support standardisation activities, liaison between R&I projects and standardisation organisations, awareness and international cooperation.
With this in mind, each chapter of the Rolling Plan references current R&I projects that are relevant for ongoing standards efforts.
How the Rolling Plan is compiled and maintained
The Rolling Plan is a living document. It aims to cover as much as possible the broad range of standardisation activities, technical specifications and standards relevant for the respective policy objectives and topic areas.
The Rolling Plan is reviewed each year based on the input from different Commission services and the advice from the MSP. In the interim periods between published versions of the Rolling Plan, factual updates are provided as needed in the form of specific addenda.
The Rolling Plan is based on broad stakeholder input on ICT standardisation topics and strategies. All stakeholders represented in the MSP provide regular input and feedback. They therefore help to paint a detailed picture on ongoing standardisation activities as well as standardisation needs and market/policy needs with a focus on public administration.
The Rolling Plan does not claim to be comprehensive or complete. It provides a perspective at a given point in time and relies on the contributions received and incorporated into it. The Commission services welcome feedback on any specific topics that may be missing or need correction.
(1) The term “standards” is used in this document in a generic way for all such deliverables from both recognised standards organisations and from standardisation fora and consortia – or the terms “standards and technical specifications” are used. Yet, whenever required in this document the terms are specified in a more detailed way drawing on the definitions given in the Regulation on European standardisation (1025/2012/EU).
(3) COM/2018/764 final: Harmonised standards: Enhancing transparency and legal certainty for a fully functioning Single Market
(4) COM/2022/31 final: An EU Strategy on Standardisation Setting global standards in support of a resilient, green and digital EU single market