The 2^nd Europe INNOVA Annual Partnering Event on the theme ‘Creating an Innovation Culture’ took place in Milan from 14 to 16 October 2007. At the same occasion the Standards Networks held a workshop on “How standardisation can stimulate lead markets”. This event clearly demonstrated that we are living at a time where a large number of different conditions have a significant impact on the innovation processes of companies. Companies have to be aware of these changes in the business environment before launching new development projects. Globalisation, global warming, demographic changes and the comprehensive use of ICT are some of the factors that have to be taken into consideration. These aspects are particularly addressed in the Standards Networks projects.

Standards form the basis when new processes, new products, new business models or new ways of meeting customer needs are developed. Interoperability standards are an excellent example of connecting old and new or different systems. Terminology or definitions standards are also cornerstones when development projects take place across borders or business environments. For instance, the construction and building industries are challenged by international competition and increased environmental consciousness.

At the same it is recognized that benefits of ICT are not fully utilized in the building processes. In this context interoperability standards are indicative of their importance to reduce the waste and energy loss in this sector. The keynote speaker of the Standards Networks session in Milan, Mr Peter Hauge Madsen, head of Project Certification at DNV Wind Energy (Denmark), gave practical examples of using standards and certification as a tool for knowledge sharing, quality assurance, performance documentation and risk management in the wind energy industry – all crucial elements in supporting innovations to succeed in the marketplace.

In this issue of the Standards Networks Newsletter we will take a closer look at the latest experiences on how to address these challenges presented by four of the six Standards networks of the Europe INNOVA initiative, i.e. BIOHEALTH, STAND-INN, STEPPIN and INNOVAFUN.

More information: http://standards.eu-innova.org
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eHealth has a strong impact on every citizen. It concerns the application of information and communication technologies (ICT) across a whole range of functions. The Health ICT Industry has the potential to become the third largest industry in the health sector with a global turnover of €50-60 billion, of which the European activity could represent one third. By 2010, a double digit growth rate in the industry of up to 11% is foreseen. Nevertheless, some obstacles such as the lack of legal regulations and of interoperability between systems might slow down the diffusion of eHealth solutions and the development of the eHealth market. Some standards offer appropriate solutions to enhance and favour the use of eHealth.

The problem is that these standards are not well known, especially in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). On 15 October 2007 the BioHealth project team, in close collaboration with the Member of European Parliament Mr. Milan Cabrnoch, MD, organised a seminar entitled "eHealth Standards and Interoperability", which was held in Brussels at the European Parliament. The aim of the event was to foster multilateral and comprehensive communication among stakeholders, experts, businessmen and politicians and to tune the efforts in order to enhance eHealth usability for the benefit of European citizens.

Detailed report on the seminar  - Top

The construction industry is often named the “30/30 industry”: 30% of any country’s GDP is construction related and 30% of this is waste. Reduction of waste and CO² emission is a crucial objective for this sector. STAND-INN addresses these challenges by introducing a shared project model where all the involved parties share the same information.

The objective is to create new and more efficient construction procedures by the introduction of manufacturing processes based on the IFC standards. The building industry consists of many small and medium-sized enterprises, which places a particular challenge for the implementation of the project model. Therefore common coordination and management efforts are needed to change the traditions in companies.
In the Standards session of the Europe INNOVA Partnering Event in Milan, questions were raised on the challenges that need to be overcome to obtain a successful implementation of computerisation of the building industry. The STAND-INN initiative was welcomed for its effort to stimulate the use of RFID standards and successfully implement them in the building industry.

In this context Mr Christopher Groome, representative of the STAND-INN project, emphasized that "Until now, the standards were important to the software developers, but not necessarily to the building industry which did not have to know the standards in order to take advantage of them".

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In real life, a purchaser's prime focus is not on innovation. He cannot be enthused if someone orders him to buy "more innovation". A purchaser cares about getting the best value for money and compliance with European regulations. According to Ditmar Waterman, project manager at PIANOo, a Dutch network organisation for purchasers: "In public procurement the officials generally care foremost about risk-reduction, not innovation".

But even though innovation is not the top concern for a purchasing officer, it will be in his own interest if the market provides him with innovative products and services. The trigger can be either improved cost-efficiency, creation of new opportunities or fewer customer complaints.

As innovation proves to be good for purchasers the question remains how to introduce this concept in the purchasing process? This is part of the STEPPIN mission to convince decision making units, project managers and political leaders to promote in their organisations the positive effects of innovative products and services. STEPPIN will also provide the purchaser "on the ground" with tools to allow their contractors to come up with innovative solutions. Functional or performance based standards are such a tool.

In January 2008, STEPPIN is organising one of two workshops at which purchasers and other experts are invited to assess a first set of practical recommendations for innovating purchasing.

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A great number of EU-funded projects are launched every year with good intentions in mind: promoting interoperability of systems, creating a better environment for innovations to take off or improving competitiveness of SMEs. However, many projects often encounter the same problem: How to communicate the results of the work done to the external stakeholders who would be the real key beneficiaries and users of the knowledge acquired?

The INNOVAFUN Standards Network, whose main objective is to help furniture SMEs to adopt the funStep standard and integrate the resulting innovations and business efficiencies into their normal business, is an excellent example of disseminating project results. They have found out that the key is to use resources efficiently and to participate in the right networks. INNOVAFUN has formed an alliance with the European Furniture Manufacturers Federation (UEA) that represents the countless European furniture producers and therefore guarantees a direct and very reliable dialogue with the right target group. Moreover, at the UEA General Assembly held on 13 December 2007 in Porto (Portugal), the INNOVAFUN project coordination team presented the funStep solutions to European national furniture manufacturer federations in order to disseminate the results to all European countries.

The project manager of INNOVAFUN, Mrs María José Núñez, explains:  “At an early stage we recognized the importance of cooperating with the SMEs’ primary provider of knowledge about new technologies. It became evident that it was crucial for the sustainability of the project that the most important market player supports the INNOVAFUN results. In other words, the key is to find the ”spiders” in the network that pull the strings."  With these “spiders” in the project, the frustrating situation of not reaching the end-users can be avoided.

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The first thematic workshop of the Europe INNOVA Standards networks took place in Funchal, Madeira on 29 March 2007, as part of the 3rd International Conference on Interoperability for Enterprise Software Applications. The key topic of the event - how can already existing open standards support innovative business solutions and improve business processes in Europe - was addressed from many angles.

The workshop focused on how the adoption of standards and standards-based e-government can drive systematic innovation in industry and public administration.

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Best standards are "invisible"

This is what Mr. Pascal Poupet, Director Standards at CEN, the European Committee for Standardization, stated in his opening speech of the CEN StandarDays held in Brussels on 18-19 October 2007. With "invisibility" Mr. Poupet referred to the fact that many products and services are defined by standards although the users may not always realise that. However, these standards guarantee that products are for example safe to use or compatible with other related equipment and services.

But why create European standards? And what is their connection to innovation? According to Mr. Poupet, "standards can work for the development of a sustainable world by affecting three main areas: economic growth, environmental integrity and social equity. Standards have contributed to the growth of national economies and worker productivity throughout the history, and continue that road by providing economies of scale, better competition and interoperability of products and services."

It is important that the standardisation process does not become too heavy and time-consuming and that the standardisation bodies are also able to answer to the needs of new and developing sectors of the economy in which the business models are constantly changing. Still, in the end, companies themselves are responsible for taking their pioneering ideas to the next level and starting a standardisation process in order to gain the benefits of a market leader.
However, in order to ensure the interoperability and speed up the diffusion of innovations it is crucial to have knowledge of the existing standards and to exploit them to their full. This is definitely the aim of the Europe INNOVA Standards Networks: identifying and promoting those “invisible” but efficient standards that support innovation in Europe.

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DG Enterprise and Industry is organising a Europe INNOVA Workshop during the EU Sustainable Energy Week. The workshop will take place on Thursday, 31 January 2008, at 9h00 – 12h45 in the Charlemagne building (Brussels, Belgium).

The Europe INNOVA workshop will discuss how Europe can support the creation of eco-innovative companies: what financing tools are needed, how public procurement and standards can contribute and if Europe can create energy world-class clusters. After two years of hands-on work with companies and policy makers, the Europe INNOVA projects will present their main experiences and recommendations.

The Workshop programme is available here

Should you want to learn about the Standards networks activities within Europe INNOVA, please go to http://standards.eu-innova.org.
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