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.