EU-Wide Advantages and Opportunities for "Standardisation Landscape Analyses Tool (CSA)"

1. Unlocked Access to the Single Market

• Offers an authoritative one-stop search engine for 600 000+ national (DIN, AFNOR, etc.), CEN/CENELEC, ETSI and ISO/IEC deliverables, enabling innovators to identify the exact harmonised standards needed for CE-marking, REACH, MDR, AI-Act or Data-Act conformity.

• Early integration of standards shortens time-to-market and cuts duplication of testing/certification costs (up to 20 % for SMEs), giving rapid access to the EU’s 450 million consumers and €16 trillion economy.

2. Cross-Border Collaboration & Knowledge Exchange

• Consortium must gather industry, academia and SDOs from at least three Member States, creating a living network of standardisation experts across Europe.

• The open-access platform becomes a neutral meeting ground for researchers drafting EN/ISO work items, facilitating co-creation of standards and joint patent-standard strategies.

• Interoperability layer (API) allows direct linking with national research portals (e.g. CORDIS, OpenAIRE) and industrial data spaces, boosting cross-border R&I matchmaking.

3. Alignment with Core EU Policies

• Directly implements the EU Standardisation Strategy and the 2023 Code of Practice on Standardisation.

• Supports the Green Deal by identifying climate-neutrality related standards (e.g. for hydrogen, batteries, circularity).

• Accelerates Digital Decade goals through mapping of AI, cybersecurity, data-sharing and 6G standards.

• Contributes to Open Strategic Autonomy and Economic Security Strategy by tracking critical technology standards and flagging dependencies on third-country SDOs.

4. Regulatory Harmonisation & Compliance Efficiency

• Provides real-time alerts on standard revisions/obsolescence, avoiding fragmented national transpositions and legal uncertainty.

• Harmonised standards in the tool carry a “presumption of conformity” tag, simplifying notified-body audits across all 27 Member States.

• Reduces the likelihood of contradictory requirements between national authorities, fostering smoother cross-border trade.

5. Strengthening the EU Innovation Ecosystem

• Embeds links to 100+ European Technology Platforms, EIT KICs and Key Digital Innovation Hubs, letting users see which standards underpin ongoing Horizon projects.

• Encourages wider SSH involvement by exposing socio-technical and ethical standards (e.g. gender, accessibility, privacy-by-design) often overlooked.

• Provides curated training modules and micro-credentials, filling the EU-wide skills gap in “standardisation as a valorisation pathway”.

6. Funding Synergies and Leverage

• Acts as a "horizontal service" that can be plugged into EIC Pathfinder/Transition, Digital Europe Testing & Experimentation Facilities, ERA Industrial Technology Roadmaps and Interreg projects.

• Data produced qualifies as a European Digital Public Good, eligible for further support via the Data Governance Act and Connecting Europe Facility.

• Creates cost savings for other EU projects – instead of each project carrying out its own standard landscape study, they can reference the tool, freeing resources for higher TRL activities.

7. Scale, Replicability & Global Impact

• EU-level aggregation allows critical mass: pooling 34 national SDO catalogues is impossible at single-country scale.

• The automated update mechanism (e.g. via RSS/API agreements with CEN/CENELEC & ISO) guarantees sustainability beyond the grant lifetime and can be replicated for other knowledge assets (e.g. patents, regulations).

• Positions Europe as a global norm-setter: by openly sharing the landscape, EU actors gain negotiation power in ISO/ITU and WTO-TBT fora.

8. Unique Strategic Value of Operating at EU Scale

• Creates a common "European language of standards" that supports cross-sector twin transition (green & digital) and Industry 5.0 objectives.

• Provides policymakers with granular analytics (gaps, overlaps, dependencies) feeding into impact assessments for new EU legislation.

• Fosters cohesion: less-resourced regions and SMEs gain equal access to high-value standard data previously locked behind paywalls or linguistic barriers.

9. Indicative KPIs & Expected Impact by 2030

• 25 000 EU R&I actors registered on the platform, with at least 35 % coming from cohesion countries.

• 15 % reduction in average Horizon Europe project time spent on preliminary standard mapping.

• +30 % increase in European coordination of new work items proposed to CEN/CENELEC/ETSI.

• Demonstrable contribution to at least 10 pieces of EU legislation (AI Act, Battery Regulation, Chips Act, etc.) through timely standard availability.

In summary, developing the Standardisation Landscape Analyses Tool under this CSA offers a pan-European public good that streamlines compliance, sparks innovation, and amplifies Europe’s voice in global standardisation—all gains that cannot be achieved at national level alone.