Why are standards important?

You may either contribute to standards in your work or you may follow or comply with standards. BOTH may be important for your proposal.

Contribute to standards:

You (or your partners) should probably know about standardisation work or be part of standardisation bodies already. If you do:
- Any contributions to standards may be seen as favourable for your work.
  - Relevance
  - Reputation
  - Best in class
Contribution to standards may improve impact
- Your work will be used by many
- The impact of your own work will be considerable and the innovation potential will be very strong
- Dissemination will be powerful as the standardisation bodies that will communicate your results using approved well known channels

Follow or comply with standards:

Your work procedure may follow certain standards
- Improving quality
- Required for later use of results
- Ease your way following procedures already known and approved
- Your results may comply with standards
  - Needed for approval and use
  - Increase impact
  - Secure market access

Be aware: In addition to standardisation bodies, directives and other legislation may also be important for understanding and finding relevant standards

Failure to comply with standards and lack of knowledge or relevant standards may ruin your proposal. Be sure you include relevant standards in the SoA chapter.

Tip.: If there are standards for approval and marketing of your results you may use this in your “Use and dissemination plan”. It will give you concrete steps in how to get you results out in the market. It may also give a good explanation of the time and effort it takes to bring things into commercial use.

On the other side: For commercial reasons some companies are not overly happy with standardisation and that their IPR should be contributed to a standard. This may hamper their commercial interests and the opportunities of being first and alone in the market with their innovation. It is probably best to keep quiet about such a position in the proposal text. However, it may be required in the Consortium Agreement from one or more partners that the innovation should not be offered as a contribution to standards.

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