COPRAS: Encouraging ICT Research Projects to Produce More Tangible Standardization Results

Abstract

Between early 2004 and 2007, the cooperation platform for research and standards (COPRAS) deployed a series of activities to improve the interfacing process between ICT research and standardization. This included the conclusion of standardization action plans with a series of projects in the EU-funded Sixth Framework Programme and the development of a set of generic standardization guidelines supporting future ICT research projects in their interfacing with standardization. COPRAS’s results show that cooperation and cross-fertilization between research and standardization is perceived as increasingly important by projects, and also demonstrate how direct and indirect support mechanisms are able to increase the amount of tangible results ICT research will be able to contribute to ongoing standards work. However, results also show that structurally improving the research and standards interfacing process will not be possible unless all parties to the process, including the research and standards communities and the administrators of the research programmes, take additional, and continuous, action.