The Commission has adopted three work programs for the Digital Europe Programme, outlining the objectives and specific topic areas that will receive a total of €1.98 billion in funding. This first set of work programs includes strategic investments that will be instrumental in realizing the Commission's goals in making this Europe's Digital Decade. The Digital Europe Program aims to bolster Europe's technological sovereignty and bring digital solutions to market for the benefit of citizens, public administrations, and businesses.

The main work program, worth €1.38 billion, will focus on investment in the areas of artificial intelligence (AI), cloud and data spaces, quantum communication infrastructure, advanced digital skills, and the wide use of digital technologies across the economy and society, until the end of 2022. Alongside this main work program, the Commission published two specific work programs: the first one focuses on funding around cybersecurity, with a budget of €269 million until the end of 2022; and the second one focuses on the set-up and operation of the network of European Digital Innovation Hubs, with a budget of €329 million, until the end of 2023.

The scope of the Workshop is the definition of a Sustainable Nanomanufacturing Framework (SNF) for sustainability management in nanomanufacturing processes. It sets up the basic requirements to assess the sustainability of a nanomanufacturing plant, allowing drafting improvement plans and monitoring the degree of progress of the nanomanufacturing plant. 

The SNF model deploys the three traditional Sustainability Dimensions (SDs): social, environment and economy. Each SD is divided into several sustainability items (SIs). The SNF allows to diagnose the starting position of a nanomanufacturing plant with respect to the SNF model, at two levels: 1) Sustainability management practices and 2) associate KPIs to measure results. The result of the diagnose is used to elaborate the corresponding sustainability Improvement Plan for the nanomanufacturing plant. The SNF is used to monitor the progress of sustainability in the PL through a customizable dashboard (two radar diagrams, Management and KPIs), which allows intuitive visualization of the starting values and the proposed improvement values improvement baseline) for the period considered, as well as their evolution over time.

Thirty years ago, the global economy was placed on a new footing in Vienna: the Vienna Agreement set the course for even closer co-operation and collaboration. What has changed since then? Fewer barriers to trade, more harmonized rules, and more room for innovation. Under the heading "From global to local: Joining forces to help global standards create local impact", the leaders of international standardization organizations such as CEN and ISO met again in Vienna on 11 October to further advance international co-operation.  The Vienna Agreement was signed in Vienna 30 years ago. Its objective: ensure that European and international standards are not in conflict with each other, but that rather they are as consistent with each other as possible. The motto: "One standard, one test – accepted everywhere". Much has happened since then. Thanks to the Agreement, enterprises can rely on globally harmonized approaches to improving the quality of products and processes – there are uniform rules for measuring, testing and quantification of greenhouse gas emissions – parents can be confident that the packaging of drugs is child-resistant – the users of health apps can be sure of clear security levels for data protection and machinery manufacturers can use the same standards for exporting tractors to countries all over the world.

The European Union has today committed to increase the role of trade in the fight against climate change and protecting the environment. It has signed up to three new initiatives to step up joint action in the World Trade Organization, sending a strong political signal on pursuing a strong environmental agenda for trade. The EU and a significant number of WTO countries will now work jointly on facilitating trade in green goods and services, promoting sustainable supply chains and the circular economy. They will also cooperate on battling plastic pollution and to enhance transparency of fossil fuel subsidies.

Every year on 14 October, the international standardization community celebrates World Standards Day. This year’s edition “Our shared vision for a better world” is dedicated to how standards support the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations (SDGs). The 17 SDGs are ambitious objectives stated in 2015 by the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. They aim, among other issues, to address social imbalances, develop a sustainable economy, and slow the rate of climate change. To be achieved, the SDGs require the cooperation of many public and private partners, and the use of all available tools. In this context, standards, and standardization organizations such as CEN and CENELEC, have an important role to play. Voluntary, consensus-based standards can provide valuable solutions to complex, global challenges.