ETSI increases outreach to the research community to accelerate innovation and standards cooperation
Sophia Antipolis, 16 June 2020
Engaging with Standards at the appropriate stages of research and innovation cycles is crucial to the development of new and evolved technologies. Identifying research topics for standardization at an early stage ensures that the requisite standards will be available to the industry when they are needed to support the relevant new technologies and products as they go to market.
Currently ETSI’s research and academic membership includes over 120 organizations, including public and private research institutes and universities from Europe and beyond. ETSI seeks to expand the existing research and academic community as well as reinforce the links with European research projects and platforms in order to build an active community of research and industrial partners, working towards a shared goal.
The sanitary crisis we are currently experiencing is a good example of where research results are essential to bringing new solutions and services to market in a timely manner. The world is looking for a vaccine against COVID-19, smartphone apps are being developed and deployed and the processing of massive amounts of medical and other logistical data is essential to mitigating the current and future pandemics.
Recognizing the important role that the research and academic community play in the evolution of new technology standards, ETSI has decided to launch a dedicated section to its website www.etsi.org/research as well as a dedicated research helpdesk research@etsi.org. These initiatives are part of a wider set of actions intended to increase the outreach and inclusivity for the ETSI research community.
These webpages and the research helpdesk will act as a focal point for existing services as well as new tools and activities to be put in place to foster new initiatives in ETSI. Such initiatives include accelerating the update of EC research results in ETSI as well as connecting with researchers from all over the globe to share thoughts, views and opinions on how to accelerate innovation through research and standards.
Every ICT device, application and service implements to some extent standardized technologies, at multiple levels. Standards support interoperability across technologies and geographical frontiers. They are essential to create global markets and enable progressive technology developments, where innovation occurs both on top of and alongside existing technology platforms. ICT standards embody a ‘state of the art’ of technology development and are an essential resource for researchers in ICT.
Being in ETSI, researchers benefit from interactions with ETSI's technical groups, gain the early exposure and feedback from the standards community that is essential to be considered before taking the results of research projects to full-market deployment. Research projects gain benefit by influencing standards as a means to have a market impact and early adoption.
At the same time, industry benefits from faster exploitation of relevant research results and feedback from a far wider community. Research input is highly relevant to the early study phases of product development when multiple alternative technical solutions have to be evaluated. Standards need innovative contributions from researchers to advance the state of the art.
So, if you want to share your research results and innovative ideas to those who will help you deploy and use your technology for their next products, join ETSI!
Contact us at: research@etsi.org