Standards are at the core of a resilient European single market, enabling companies to demonstrate compliance with EU regulations, creating a level playing field for businesses and increasing consumer confidence. For research and innovation projects, transferring results to a standards-setting organisation can further extend exploitation opportunities by spurring innovation. This ensures the uptake and wider use of new technologies and inventions, guaranteeing interoperability and compatibility, providing quality and safety levels, and codifying knowledge in clear and specific ways. In certain domains, meeting a harmonised standard is not simply beneficial but a precondition for market access.
Contributing to standards is often an objective of many R&I projects, sometimes reflected in a dedicated task, deliverable or milestone. However, actually navigating the path to engage with standardisation working groups and technical committees can be complex, costly and difficult to achieve within the lifetime of a project.
The Open Call is continuously open, covering topics aligned with the priorities set out in the EU Strategy on Standardisation. By applying, EU-funded and nationally funded research and innovation projects — including those supported under Horizon Europe, Digital Europe, EUREKA and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions — can access professional, personalised support delivered by matched standardisation experts, from proposal stage through to the Standards Accelerator.
How to apply
Access to the Mentoring Service is a two-step process.
Step 1: Register on the HSbooster.eu II website
Before applying for any service, projects must first register on our website. Registration requires basic details about you and your organisation, including your name, job title, company type, country and a link to your LinkedIn, ORCID or institutional profile. This creates your account and allows us to contact you about your application.
Step 2: Submit your application via the Standardisation Open Platform (SOP)
Once registered, log in to sop.hsbooster.eu to submit your application for the Mentoring Service. You will be asked to provide information on your project's objectives, the maturity of its results, its relevance to standardisation, and the specific support you are seeking.
Applying for the booster service takes about 30 minutes. You cannot save your progress, so please take a look at the application form in full before applying. We recommend you prepare content before making the application.
To make the application, you will need:
- Basic administrative information on the project (funding scheme, GA number, full name etc.)
- Information about the project objectives and those related to standardisation
- Details on why you are making the application and the goals you would like to achieve with the support of the booster services.