StandICT.eu EUOS Standards Academy: Bids Farewell & Heartfelt thanks to the outgoing chair and Welcomes in its new Chair this Spring 2023

Need for Standardisation Education

Standards are a significant driver for economic growth, but have also the potential to contribute to successfully achieving the “European Green Deal” and the “New Industrial Strategy for Europe” and the SDGs in general. The idea of including standardisation knowledge in curricula of Higher Education Institutes to educate students about standardisation is becoming more and more of a topic of discussion in Europe. The need to create the next generation of Standards experts is important to allow for those veteran experts to retire gracefully, since we are aware that standards can help to promote the development and implementation of sustainable digital technologies. Having more trained experts on the topics will secure Europe’s European core values in international standardisation discussions and this is precisely what we intend to do as part of StandICT.eu 2026 where we wish to increase the number of well-educated experts in national, European and international standardisation committees.

StandICT.eu and the Future Standardisation Education

Ensuring greater recognition of standardisation in education is crucial. The relevance of this issue also emerged during the StandICT.eu online event ‘Future Standardisation Education’ which took place on the 18th January 2023, whose main output is a report entitled ‘Future Standardisation Education Reflections and Recommendations’. The report includes a series of recommendations to support standardisation education, which highlights the importance of fostering engagement at multiple levels. Universities and professionals should both be actively involved, including researchers, students, teachers, program managers, and decision-makers. Industry engagement is critical, and involving professionals as instructors to share their experiences through teaching activities is key. Creating industry clusters can facilitate knowledge exchange and ensure active participation from both the demand and supply sides. This collaborative effort will have a positive impact on various communities.

StandICT.eu is making a great effort to mainstream standardisation education in high-level courses and curricula. To turn its purposes into actions, the consortium has set up and run the EUOS Standards Academy, and now is preparing for a special event.

The closing meeting of the StandICT.eu 2023 EUOS Standards Academy is approaching. On 13 June, the current chair of the EUOS Standards Academy, Brian McAuliffe, Director of Technology Standards at HP Inc. and ISO/IEC JTC 1 Liaison Officer to the European Commission, will be thanked for his outstanding work over the past three years. At the same time, the project partners will warmly welcome Ivana Mijatovic, Professor at Faculty of Organisational Sciences, University of Belgrade, as the new chair of the EUOS Standards Academy (EUOS Academy) within StandICT.eu 2026.

The EUOS Standards Academy

The EUOS Standards Academy is an essential resource for all the training needs on ICT standards impacting the StandICT.eu Stakeholder Community. The materials provided here have been produced and carefully selected by top-class researchers and trainers who work in the standardisation arena, as well as by Standard-Developing Organisations (SDOs) and targeted EC Training Programmes delivered on ICT Standardisation. With the search feature and the filters available, you can browse the training material catalogue or choose one of our selected starter packs, which range from beginners, intermediate and advanced levels to get started on your standardisation pathway.

In the increasingly complex world of information and communications technologies, the need for timely, good quality standards has never been more important. For the standardisation ecosystem to be fit for purpose, a wide variety of stakeholder participation is however essential, and a prerequisite to such participation is an adequate level of understanding of how the standardisation process works. For this reason, more readily-available education and access to training materials on the ‘what and the how’ of standards and standardisation has been and remains necessary.
-          Brian McAuliffe, chair of the EUOS Standards Academy in StandICT.eu 2023

The Handover-Takeover

Brian McAuliffe has been an active contributor to the project for the past three years and led the Standards Academy Expert Group with dedication and commitment. Under his leadership, a team of experts was established, representing industry, academia, societal stakeholders, SDOs, and policy makers from across Europe. They have worked tirelessly to develop a repository of training and education materials on standardisation, categorised by knowledge level and subject matter, which are now publicly available on the Academy portal site.

“These materials are now publicly available – Brian says – and for the first time all this content is available via one site. We did not develop any new material, but focused on bringing existing material together in a user-friendly way. Over the next months, additional content will be added to the portal.”

Looking to the future, the StandICT.eu 2026 consortium is thrilled to welcome Ivana Mijatovic as the new chair of the EUOS Standards Academy (EUOS Academy) within StandICT.eu 2026. Ivana is a full professor at the Faculty of Organisational Sciences, University of Belgrade, and a member of the STARTed team (Team of Specialists on Standardisation and Regulatory Techniques – education on standardisation) of the UNECE. She also serves as a vice-president on the board of the European Academy for Standardisation (EURAS) and board of the International Cooperation on Education about Standardisation (ICES).

StandICT.eu 2023 - that it is coming to its natural end -  made some significant breakthroughs in providing new insights and generating new knowledge by building a European network of ICT standard experts. Much of that new knowledge needs to be transferred into training. I am grateful to have the opportunity to serve and lead the StandICT.eu 2026 EUOS Academy in support of my lifelong passion: education and training on standardisation. On behalf of the StandICT.eu 2026 EUOS Academy, we will do our best to continue Brian’s and StandICT.eu 2023 EUOS SEG’s hard work and enthusiasm.
-          Ivana Mijatović, Chair of the StandICT.eu 2026 EUOS Standards Academy

The new course is based on solid foundations

Ivana's current academic work addresses the question of standardisation, education about standardisation, teaching quality, and quality aspects of technology-enhanced learning.

Ivana has been an active contributor to the project for the last three years and I am sure will bring a new and energetic perspective to the work, strengthening its value proposition and contribution to the goal of greater standards education for Europe, also a key pillar of the ESS.
-          Brian McAuliffe, Director of Technology Standards at HP Inc. & ISO/IEC JTC 1 Liaison Officer to the European Commission

The StandICT.eu consortium would like to extend a heartfelt thanks to Brian McAuliffe for his invaluable contributions as the chair of the EUOS Standards Academy. Brian's exceptional work and unwavering dedication over the past three years have been instrumental in establishing a robust repository of training and education materials on standardisation. His leadership has brought together a diverse group of experts, fostering collaboration and knowledge sharing to benefit the entire standardisation ecosystem. As StandICT.eu bids farewell to Brian, the partners are confident that Ivana’s expertise and passion will continue to drive the success of the StandICT.eu 2026 initiative. Together, they remain committed to providing readily-available education and training materials to empower stakeholders and enhance the understanding of standards and standardisation in the dynamic ICT landscape.

Stay tuned: the First Open Call under StandICT.eu 2026 has already been launched

On 9 May 2023, StandICT.eu launched the first in a series of nine new open calls that will run from May 2023 through to April 2025 under the new contract funded under the Horizon Europe Programme of the European Commission StandICT.eu 2026 project. The calls will allocate € 2,925,000 in much needed funding to support European Standardisation specialists working on ICT standards, participate in and bring a European perspective to international and global SDOs, through the StandICT.eu Fellowship Programme. In the past 6 years, [2018-present day],  StandICT.eu has regularly provided funding and support through a series of 18 Open Calls  totalling nearly 6 million euros and funding 586 successful European experts working on standardisation ranging from SMEs, IT consultancies and Academia and Research Organisations working on various strategic ICT standardisation topics, among which cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, blockchain and 5G  proved to be the most popular topics.

Who is behind StandICT.eu 2026?

Dublin City University, DCU (IE, Financial & Administrative Coordinator) and Trust-IT Srl (IT, Technical Coordinator), technically coordinates and drive the effort with highly experienced partners: Open Forum Europe (BE), AUSTRALO (ES), Digital SME Alliance (BE), and Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI (DE).