The rules on European standardisation allow the European Commission to identify information and communication technology (ICT) technical specifications - that are not national, European or international standards - to be eligible for referencing in public procurement. This allows public authorities to make use of the full range of specifications when buying IT hardware, software and services, allowing for more competition in the field and reducing the risk of lock-in to proprietary systems. Click here for more information on the process.
On July 20, a Commission Decision has been adopted including four ICT specifications from the Research Data Alliance (RDA), a global community-driven organisation launched and supported by the European Commission together with partners from other regions of the world. RDA has the goal of building the social and technical infrastructure to enable open sharing of research data across geographical boundaries and disciplines.
The implementation and uptake of these four ICT specifications will foster the industrial participation in providing cross-border & cross-regional data services in the area of research. This is in line with the European strategy of building a European Open Science Cloud and a European Data Infrastructure to bring networking, data and computing services closer to European researchers and innovators as it will allow the industry to better match its capabilities with the requirements of science.
For more information on RDA and the four ICT specifications identified for public procurement, please visit RDA's website.