Among the many ambitions of the PROGRESSIVE project is the set-up of a group that gathers standardisers, economic stakeholders of the Silver Economy and older people’s representatives. A proposal of STAIR Platform for Active and Healthy Ageing (AHA) was submitted to the European standardisation bodies CEN and CENELEC before summer and we have pretty good news!
Faced with the observation that ageing demographics oblige economic stakeholders to address the needs and preferences of older consumers, standardisers are now increasingly involved in work relating to the Silver Economy. Many standardisation initiatives have (or will have in the near future) a direct impact on the life of older people.
In order to support standardisers in their attempt to develop standards that are fit for a society that is inclusive of all age groups, PROGRESSIVE proposed to set up a coordination body that would put standards developers in touch with economic stakeholders, researchers and older persons’ representatives.
This coordination body takes the shape of a STAIR-Platform (STAndardisation, Innovation and Research) for Active and Healthy Ageing, named STAIR-AHA, and would develop recommendations for future action at the European standardisation level. A STAIR platform aims to bring together standardisers, researchers, innovators and end users in order to discuss and identify standardisation needs and opportunities for a specific area of concern (in this case: active and healthy ageing). The platform is not intended to develop standard-like documents but recommendations for future action. The starting initiative typically comes from one or more H2020-financed Research and/or Innovation projects.
The proposal for the STAIR-AHA was voted within the Technical Boards (BTs) of CEN and of CENELEC and has just recently been approved! In fact, 25 National Standardisation Bodies, plus ANEC (the European consumer voice in standardisation), have supported its creation.
A first face-to-face meeting of the STAIR-AHA is planned for October 31, 2018 in Berlin, Germany.
If you are interested in joining this group, you are invited to contact Fernando Machicado: fmachicado@une.org.