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Learning about standardization through gummy bears and playing – a cool new board game for everyone
Lue lisää
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Working at CEN and CENELEC
Hulda Niinistö, EU Policy Project Manager at CEN and CENELEC. Part 3 of 3.
CEN and CENELEC cover a wide range of topics and policy areas, making it an extremely interesting place to work in European policy. We collaborate with our 34 Members from National Standards Bodies and National Committees to increase institutional awareness and influence key European policy areas affecting standards. And, since standardization is so closely tied to important European policies, it is exciting to be able to contribute to common European goals.
The importance of standards, which are often not discussed or reported on widely outside standardization circles, has become clear to me through my work at CEN and CENELEC. Standards contribute to Europe’s productivity and competitiveness because they are produced in a bottom-up and expert-driven manner, ensuring that they reflect the best practices and cutting-edge innovations of the industries that will use them. For example, a 2023 Menon Economics study on the macroeconomic benefits of standards found that standardization was associated with a 25% increase in labour productivity in the Nordics and the Netherlands between 1970 and 2019. To me, this highlights why standards should be harnessed to achieve European goals and aspirations.
I found CEN and CENELEC through an internship from Antwerp Management School (AMS), where I earned my Masters. CEN and CENELEC have been commissioning Master projects from AMS for several years as part of their commitment to promote standardization in education and to reach out to students. After finishing my master’s project on assessing CEN and CENELEC Members’ business models, I applied for a position in the Policy and External Affairs Department. We are located in the center of rainy Brussels, a couple of blocks from the European Parliament. It’s been wonderful to dive deeper into the complex world of standardization, and I look forward to seeing where this journey takes me.
