COCIR criticises lengthy standardisation process and cautions against overfocus on SMEs
This article was originally published in Clinica
Innovation cannot be supported efficiently through standardisation because of the current lengthy processes which mean that by the time consensus is reached and standards published, the innovation aspects are gone.
That is the view of the COCIR, the European Coordination Committee of the Radiological, Electromedical and Healthcare IT Industry. Its comments are a response to the European Commission's discussion paper, which has been published in preparation for a further Communication on how to ensure standardisation better promotes EU innovation.
Also among its concerns are that some standardisation committees are dominated by academic participants and suffer from lack of participation from stakeholders, such as industry, users and regulatory authorities,
This is a more important challenge than including small and medium-sized enterprises, COCIR believes. Indeed, the association criticises how SMEs currently reap many of the benefits of investment by larger companies in standardisation work. Some SMEs only participating in standards work for funding reasons, "without clear engagement or contribution", it says.
COCIR would like to see this replaced with a mechanism by which industry associations should nominate appropriate experts depending on the expertise needed.
If the structure of SMEs is a factor hindering their involvement in standardisation, COCIR says, then one way to resolve this problem could be to facilitate SME participation in industry associations. These could then play a co-ordinating role. These are among the key messages in COCIR's short but targeted response, given the traditional holiday break, to the Commission's discussion paper. Because of the time constraints, it limits its feedback to just four questions.
Other points that the trade association makes are that:
* it favours concentrating standardisation efforts on the international level to minimise the burden at European or national level in terms of development of common standards;
* it does not support the principle of one country/one vote as this does not really reflect the impact of economic commitment between countries; and
* when it comes to knowledge transfer, standards do not play a key role.
However, COCIR notes that it could be helpful to create specific funding mechanisms for transfer of knowledge from research into established standards-developing organisations, and that there could be a simpler and quicker administrative process for reviewing, amending and voting standards.