This publication provides an overview of standardization as part of university programmes and the approaches they follow.
We believe that ISO Standards benefit everybody, but we recognise that their benefits often remain hidden. This is why we believe that it is important to teach the economic, societal and environmental benefits of International Standards at all education levels.
We have a number of education initiatives and provide support to our members in this area.
- We have developed teaching materials.
- In partnership with IEC and ITU, we organize the World Standards Cooperation academic days.
- We support our members in promoting cooperation between standards bodies and education institutions.
ISO has developed a series of teaching materials that are available for all ISO members to use.
These materials were developed as part of ISO’s contribution to the University of Geneva Masters' programme Standardization, Social Regulation and Sustainable Development. The masters is an interdisciplinary programme including sociology, management and economics. It is developed in partnership by the University of Geneva, ISO and SNV (the Swiss national standards body).
The programme focuses on sustainable development and in particular the idea that development processes need the active involvement of all parties likely to contribute to or to be affected by them. It underlines the importance of the participatory processes involving public and private actors at various levels ('social regulation'), including the standard-setting practices that provide essential voluntary agreements supporting the dissemination of knowledge, best practices and monitoring tools.
Here you'll find a wealth of information that demonstrates the economic and wider benefits of standards.
WSC Academic Day
WSC Academic Day brings together researchers, educators, ISO members and other standards development organizations. It is designed to promote dialogue between universities and the international standards community, to raise awareness and to foster cooperation and joint initiatives. Organized in partnership with IEC and ITU, WSC Academic Day is an annual event and is also held in conjunction with the International Cooperation on Education about Standardization (ICES) annual conference.
The 2019 event was held in Belgrade, Serbia, on 11 October, on the topic of Economic, social and environmental benefits of International Standards. More information is available on the event website.
Past Academic Day Events
WSC Academic Day is an annual event.
- 2018 Yogyakarta, Indonesia
- 2017 Chicago, USA
- 2016 Frankfurt, Germany
- 2015 Seoul, Republic of Korea
- 2014 Ottawa, Canada
- 2013 Sophia Antipolis, France
- 2012 Bali, Indonesia
- 2011 Hangzhou, China.
- 2010 Geneva, Switzerland.
Promoting cooperation between standards bodies and education institutions
To assist our members in their efforts to integrate standardization into educational curricula, we have published a brochure on Teaching Standards: Good practices for collaboration between national standards bodies and universities. This brochure provides an overview of the key reasons why standardization should be part of university programmes and describes the approaches followed by universities in addressing standards-related topics in different disciplines (providing a number of specific examples). It presents the various forms of cooperation between national standards bodies and universities and proposes a roadmap that national standards bodies can follow to develop or strengthen collaboration with universities (highlighting key success factors and obstacles to be removed)..
A number of workshops titled "Enhancing collaboration between national standards bodies and academia" were carried out between 2012 and 2014 and were instrumental in the development of “Teaching Standards”.
