Research and innovation in Europe
On 9 February 2011 the European Commission presented its Green Paper titled "From Challenges to Opportunities: Towards a Common Strategic Framework for EU Research and Innovation funding" which proposes major changes to EU research and innovation funding which will make participation at national and EU level easier by bundling competencies and strategies for promoting innovation.
The Commission has launched a public consultation to gather the views of all interested individuals and organizations on these proposed changes and on the specific questions set out in the Green Paper. Persons can participate in many ways, for instance by filling out an online questionnaire or by submitting written responses. The consultation ends on 20 May 2011.
DIN recommends that interested companies and associations take part in this consultation, whereby special mention should be made of the numerous benefits standardization brings to research, development and innovation.
The joint strategic working group formed by the European standardization organizations CEN and CENELEC to address standardization, innovation and research, "STAIR", together with STAIR's Chairman Prof. Knut Blind (TU Berlin) have already contributed to the public consultation by submitting their paper "The Operationalization of the Integrated Approach". In this paper 9 proposals are made for integrating standardization as early as possible in the research, development and innovation (R&D&I) phases because this is an effective strategy for translating research findings into marketable products and benefits for society as a whole.