The ETSI Technical Committee on Electronic Signatures and Infrastructures (TC ESI) is pleased to release the ETSI TR 103684 technical report. This report addresses existing trust service infrastructures that operate in different regions of the world and their possible mutual recognition/global acceptance. The report identifies ways to facilitate cross recognition between EU trust services and trust services from other schemes. The trust services are based on ETSI standards and support the eIDAS Regulation (EU) No 910/2014.
ETSI TR 103 684 concentrates on existing PKI-based trust services, the most prevalent across the world. The study analyzed 37 global, sector and national public key infrastructure schemes and involved workshops held in 4 regions of the world in Dubai, Tokyo, Mexico City and New York. The methodology covered four main elements of a trust service: legal context, supervision and audit, technical standards, and trust representation. The study highlighted a strong interest with achieving mutual recognition of trust services with the EU in all the regions of the world visited.

Technological change is changing the global economy. To continue to prosper, European businesses have to be competitive. In this context, new digital skills are a major priority for the European industry, for it to compete successfully in the global, innovation-based economy. Indeed, the global race for talent requires the European workforce to acquire high-level skills and continuously improve them to boost employability and fuel competitiveness and growth. Unfortunately, in many industries, there are still increasing skills gaps and mismatches related to digital and high-tech key enabling technologies, which reduces their ability to benefit from the opportunities of digitalisation.
Addressing this gap is the objective of recently published EN 16234-1:2019 ‘e-Competence Framework (e-CF) - A common European Framework for ICT Professionals in all sectors - Part 1: Framework’. The standard provides a new framework to categorise e-skills, by referencing a list of 41 competences required in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) professional work environment, using a common language for competences, skills and proficiency levels that can be understood across Europe.
The definitions presented in the document are designed to apply to all actors involved in the ICT sector, such as ICT service companies and professionals, managers and human resource (HR) departments, vocational education institutions and training bodies, professional associations, accreditation, validation and assessment bodies, and market analysts and policy makers, providing them with a commonly recognised measure of ICT talent.

In a global economy increasingly based on knowledge, it is fundamental to be able to drive change and innovate. Standards contribute to the success of new technology: they support each stage of the innovation process and ensure the fast access of innovative products and technologies to the market. With this belief, one of CEN and CENELEC’s priorities is to improve the relation between the research and innovation (R&I) community and standardization, to increase the possibility of synergies and foster collaboration across the board. This is the objective of the BRIDGIT II project, as the recent European Conference ‘Boosting Innovation through Standards’, which on 13 November 2019 put together the standardization and the research worlds, has shown.

As part of the project, the new website standardsplusinnovation.eu has just been released. The website will serve as the main entry point for researchers and innovators to the world of standardization. Together with providing information on how standards can help innovation and research throughout its different development paths, from funding to market access, the website also presents some inspiring success stories of researchers and innovators.
To announce the launch of the Standards+Innovation website, CEN, CENELEC and the other project partners are launching an online communication campaign that in the coming weeks will showcase the benefit of standards.