Conformity assessment and standardization in the public domain

Standardisation is the phenomenon of establishing technical standards by private bodies, agreed upon by private parties in the industry, as to align products and production processes to the current demand. Standardisation bodies usually are non-profit private bodies. In conformity assessment, an independent institution assesses whether a product, service, person or system meets certain requirements (based on certain standards and / or assessment guidelines). Mostly, conformity assessment bodies are often not administrative bodies. The aim of this project is to map how national and European legislators and administrative bodies make use of standardisation and conformity assessment and under what conditions this is possible.