Brussels (18 May) With the focus on European Technology Platforms (ETPs) collaborating in addressing societal challenges, the three European Standards Organizations, CEN (European Committee for Standardization), CENELEC (European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization) and ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) took the opportunity to establish the importance of standardization to foster research and development, when they participated in the ETP Conference and Exhibition „Working together on societal challenges. The conference and parallel-running exhibition were organized by the European Commission and took place in Brussels from 11 – 12 May.

The European Standards Organizations‟ participation was amply justified by the level of interest in standardization as an essential part of helping companies to introduce innovation. The need to improve links between the European Technology Platforms and the standards environment was stressed in several interventions, including the keynote address of the European Commissioner for Research, Innovation & Science, Ms Máire Geoghegan-Quinn. This was translated into practical discussions between researchers and the ESOs‟ personnel on site.

This closer collaboration will be taken forward, starting in the context of the forthcoming European Innovation Policy.

John Ketchell, Director Innovation, CEN-CENELEC, spoke during the conference session „Smaller Footprints: Decarbonisation of the Transportation of Passengers & Goods‟ about the benefits of standards helping to translate innovation into market success. Europe needs clean and efficient transport technologies for economic and societal well-being. Standards are a pre-requisite for these technologies to be fully adopted by the market. The recent CEN-CENELEC STAIR document promotes an integrated approach for Standardization, Innovation and Research, ready to respond to the new Commission innovation policy.

Media Contacts:

CEN and CENELEC Elisabeth Brodthagen Unit Manager Communication Tel.: +32 2 519 6890 E-mail: ebrodthagen@cencenelec.eu

ETSI Paul Reid Communications and Events Tel.: +33 4 92 94 42 19 E-mail: Paul.Reid@etsi.org