Whether incremental or radical, linear or networked, innovation is a process supported by a multiplicity of intermediate variables.
Standards are part of this equation. In the digital world they provide for connectivity and interoperability, thus enabling critical mass effects in product and service markets, which allow in turn for trusted environments that both business and end-users need in order to contribute to the innovation dynamic/virtuous circle.
Yet when it comes to implementing standards, there are so many to choose from. At a time when the EU is both revising the standardisation policy instruments and unfolding the Digital Agenda, the EIF is keen to get views from major designers of the EU ICT landscape on:
- The role standards and interoperability can and should play in the innovation food chain.
- What is the impact of distributed and open innovation, in which end users - rather than suppliers - are the cornerstone of the process?
- How can public policies best support the process?
- What standardization system can be flexible and agile to react to/anticipate market demands, yet sufficiently robust and reliable to base a competitiveness and internal market policy upon?
Catherine Trautmann, MEP and EIF Governor
Jochen Friedrich, Technical Relations Executive, IBM Technical Relations Europe
Antti Peltomaki, Deputy Director General, DG Information Society and Media, European Commission