The Society for Standards Professionals (SES) recently held its 70th Annual Conference during which Professor Ray Walshe of the ADAPT Centre presented on the challenges and opportunities identified by European Observatory for ICT Standards (EUOS) during a session on Enabling European Leadership in International ICT Standards Development.
EUOS has active working groups from international standards development organizations (SDOs). Some of the participants include IEC, ISO, ITU, IEEE and W3C, who produce reports on artificial intelligence, blockchain, cyber, data, IoT and digital twin and smart cities for the European Commission and make them freely available to the public.
Professor Walshe is a member of the IEC and ISO joint technical committee that develops international standards for information and communication technologies. He contributes to the work being done for artificial intelligence as project editor of a big data reference architecture standard.
Speaking at the event, Professor Walshe said: “There are many international standards development organizations (SDOs). To avoid silos the key is collaboration and not duplication. We want to bring experts together rather than creating new working groups.”
EUOS supports European experts in standardization activities and offers funding through a series of calls for standards development proposals.
During the first open call cybersecurity, 5G and IoT are the most popular fields, totalling the 46% of applications received for funding standards proposals. eHealth accounted for 15%. Other areas of interest included: quantum technology, cloud computing, big data, blockchain and AI.
“SMEs, microbusinesses, academia, SDOs, government and large business were among applicants. Of the wide spectrum of SDOs, IEC and ISO joint technical committee had the largest number, covering big data”, added Walshe.
Topics added in the second call included edge computing, ontologies and open data standards. The evaluation of the third call should conclude next May, while the fourth call is open.
“Education and Training are important in the ICT standardization field as in any other discipline. The EUOS Academy works with international experts to help support the next generation of standards developers”, said Walshe.
Resources offered, include the state-of-the-art repository of over 5000 standards, the collaborative networking space and cloud-based tools. The Academy provides:
Professor Walshe is Director, EU Observatory for ICT Standards and DCU Partner in StandICT.eu 2023, a European Commission funded project. StandICT.eu 2023, “Supporting European Experts Presence in International Standardisation Activities in ICT”, addresses the need for ICT standardization and defines a pragmatic approach and streamlined process to reinforce EU expert presence in international ICT standardization. It analyses and monitors the international ICT standards landscape and liaises with SDOs and industry-led groups, to pinpoint gaps and priorities matching EU DSM objectives.
Launched in 2018, the project runs open calls to fund proposals for standards which focus on priority domains for European specialists who contribute to ongoing standards development activities.
