Why standards for Research and Innovation?

Most people are aware of standards for building materials, mobile telephones (GSM / CDMA), paper size (A4 / A5), optical media (CD / DVD) etc. These standards are agreed definitions or specifications of units, methods, products, processes or services. They provide people and organizations with the basis for mutual understanding and are used as tools to facilitate communication, measurements, commerce and manufacturing.

There are many thousands of standards of various types. Standards can be categorized into 4 major types:

1. Fundamental standards - which concern terminology, conventions, signs and symbols, etc.
2. Test methods and analysis standards - which measure characteristics such as temperature and chemical composition
3. Specification standards - which define characteristics of a product (product standards), or a service (service activities standards) and their performance thresholds such as fitness for use, interface and interoperability, health and safety, environmental protection, etc
4. Organization standards - which describe the functions and relationships of a company, as well as elements such as quality management and assurance, maintenance, value analysis, logistics, project or system management, production management etc.

In the past years the role of standardization as a bridge between research activities and the market has been increasingly recognized, both by EU institutions and by R&D stakeholders. In the EU calls for research and innovation, standardization is identified as a key activity, deliverable or expected outcome for the future project.

UKAAB as a Accreditation Board research and innovate more standards.

We share this research with our certification bodies.