Standards for 4th Industrial Revolution - Action Plan
22 July 2021
The National Quality Infrastructure (NQI) partners, BSI, National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and UKAS with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy publish Standards for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, an action plan to unlock the value of standards for innovation.
This joint Action Plan is intended to enable the NQI’s activities across standards, measurement, and accreditation to support innovation and technological change for the fourth industrial revolution. Six actions have been agreed to secure effective synergies between standards, policy making and strategic research:
- Deploy an agile approach to develop and review standards in priority areas to respond to the challenges of fast-paced technological change.
- Accelerate the digitalisation of standards to foster greater efficiency and flexibility for industries of the future.
- Upscale engagement with stakeholders, in particular innovators, smaller businesses and consumer representatives, to boost their participation in standardisation and draw in their views.
- Strengthen the strategic coordination between government, the NQI partners and UK Research and Innovation on future priorities for standardisation and the wider NQI to support innovation.
- Raise awareness of how standards and the wider NQI can help inform and support the delivery of government policies, in particular to enable innovation and the deployment of emerging technologies.
- Embed consideration of standards in the policy-making process to unlock their value in fostering growth and innovation.
