The following project summary is provided as a preface to the deliverable, to provide a succinct description of the main aims and objectives of StandICT.eu.
The Digital Single Market (DSM) is aimed at boosting Europe’s competitiveness throughout multiple industrial and service sectors. 5 priority domains are highlighted as the building blocks of the DSM: 5G, Cloud Computing, Internet of Things, Cybersecurity and Big Data. The emergence and continuous evolution in these domains compels the establishment of common standards to guarantee interoperable and benchmarked services and technologies to drive the DSM, keep markets open, support innovation and allow a full-service portability.

StandICT.eu, “Supporting European Experts Presence in International Standardisation Activities in ICT”, addresses the need for ICT Standardisation and defines a pragmatic approach and streamlined process to reinforce EU expert presence in the international ICT standardisation scene. Through a Standards Watch, StandICT.eu will map and monitor the international ICT standards landscape and liaise with Standards Development Organisations (SDOs) and Standard Setting Organisations (SSOs), as well as industry-led groups, to identify gaps and priorities matching EU DSM objectives These will become the topics for a series of 8 Open calls in the 5 priority domains, additional fields defined in the Rolling Plan and Artificial Intelligence and a continuous cascading grants process, to be launched by StandICT.eu from March 2018, providing support for European specialists to contribute to ongoing standards development activities, and attend SDO & SSO meetings.

Through the mapping and monitoring process of activities in the EU and globally, over its 24 month work plan, StandICT.eu will provide a Go-To-Platform for the Open Call applications and evaluation, support prioritization of standardisation activities and build a community of Standardisation experts to  support knowledge exchange and collaboration and reinforce European presence in the international ICT standardisation scene through 3 structured steps: 

1. Monitoring and gathering information on the on-going work from the relevant international and global SDOs; 
2. Setting up, managing and facilitating an open call designed to support the participation and contribution of EU specialists in key SDOs; and 
3. Creating positive impact on business and research opportunities from ICT standardisation.

StandICT.eu’s positioning will envisage a trajectory of the ICT standardisation landscape that looks beyond 2020. An influential Expert Advisory Group (EAG) and External Pool of Evaluators (EPE) will support the project’s rigorous activities.
The objectives of the project can be summarized as follows:

• To create awareness on the advantages of adopting ICT standards; 
• To build strong motivation to businesses and SMEs, in addition to researchers to contribute actively in the shaping of ICT standards; 
• To provide input and feedback during the development and evolution phases; 
• To deliver the StandICT.eu platform supporting an inclusive transparent, continuous Open Call process and the standardisation landscape overview through the StandICT Watch to ensure effective grants allocations 
• To attain global recognition of StandICT.eu is the Go-to-Platform to understand how Europe influences ICT standards efforts;
• Create a lasting legacy a consolidated, relevant European Community database of experts and engaged actors in the project;
• Provide global visibility of the benefits worldwide.