CEN, The European Committee for Standardization, and CENELEC, The European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization, have agreed to combine their strategic approach to standards work in the domain of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).
With hundreds of industry consortia at global level, technology standards are often fragmented. This environment can be perplexing for stakeholders, and resulting specifications may not always reflect European needs. To increase clarity, and ensure European needs were met, CEN Members had a long-term strategic group – the CEN/ISSS Forum – whose Chair reported to the Technical Board, which sets CEN technical standards strategy.
With converging technologies in this domain, and an increasing interest to see collaboration with consortia, CENELEC has agreed to join the Forum, which is now known as the CEN-CENELEC ICT Forum. The CEN-CENELEC ICT Forum's role is advisory, but the collaborative effort will ensure greater transparency and better handling of European standards needs.
The initiative will combine the ongoing efforts both organizations have in this fast-moving domain - CEN in terms of applications such as eBusiness, eHealth, eGovernment, etc., and CENELEC for IT hardware and systems issues such as those associated with SmartHouse, alarms, cable and broadcasting receivers, etc.
In CENELEC, work is taking place in Technical Committees, as well as in Workshops. For more information on the CENELEC activities, please consult the CENELEC Web site.
In CEN, work is taking place in formal CEN Technical Committees, in CEN Focus Groups and in CEN Workshops.
CEN Focus Groups aim to report on the current standards environment in a particular area of public interest, with a view to providing recommendations on necessary standardization work for the future.
CEN Workshops aim to arrive at a consensus on an issue that can be published as a CEN Workshop Agreement (CWA). These deliverables may take the form of best practice agreements, codes of conduct or pre-standards, with the formal backing of CEN.