European standards bodies enjoy high international recognition for their technological expertise andlong experience in inclusive standard setting, and many global ICT standards are either based upon orstrongly influenced by European standards (e.g. GSM, LTE, DVB1). This makes Europe an interestingand influential international cooperation partner.The EU, through its newly established Partnership Instrument, has decided to foster its cooperationwith India on ICT standardisation issues. The project aims at supporting India to successfully participate from an early stage ininternational ICT standardisation efforts, thereby avoiding India-specific standards, and improving andreinforcing the market perspectives for the EU ICT sector in an area where the EU-India Broad BasedTrade and Investment Agreement (BTIA) negotiations can bring about only limited benefits.
The specific objectives of this inception phase and of this assignment, funded under the PartnershipInstrument (PI) Annual Action Programme (AAP) 2014 were focused on identification of the most promising cooperation field(s) on ICT-related standardisation issuesand design of the corresponding pilot initiatives that shall be implemented during the followupimplementation phase (at least one pilot initiative each shall be identified and designed,focusing on EU-India cooperation and dialogue on a specific set(s) of ICT standards, and on aspecific area(s) for statistical cooperation in implementation of SDMX standards), and preparing the ground for the implementation phase of the follow-up action, ensuring the buyinof all relevant stakeholders, identifying the most suitable implementation arrangements,preparing the needed communication infrastructure and contact databases, as well as ensuringa smooth hand-over and transition to the implementation of the full-fledged project and of theidentified pilot initiatives.
The services provided on this assignment consisted of the discussion and validation with all the relevant stakeholders of the topics to be prioritisedfor the future cooperation in the form of pilot projects to be covered by the follow-up funding(AAP 2016), preparation work for the follow-up implementation phase, in close cooperation with relevantstakeholders, and establishment of an adequate communications infrastructure for continued use during the fullfledgedimplementation phase.