Background

Quality infrastructure (e.g., accreditation, metrology, standards) promotes trade on a fair market and safe products/services in a sustainable society. The growing transition towards digital technologies poses both opportunities and challenges. Artificial intelligence can help to improve risk assessment and expedite conformity assessment. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) tools can help the management of standardization and accreditation processes. The integration of technologies into products can, however, also complicate the testing and analysis of product conformity and safety. Technologies not based on internationally recognized standards can also potentially create technical barriers to trade.

This panel discussion responds to the proposed theme of the 2023 Commission session on “digital and green transformations for sustainable development in the ECE region”. It is important to ensure that digitalization and sustainability support each other and do not hinder each other.

Objective

This panel discussion will seek to outline how digitalization can contribute to better quality infrastructure and how it can also disrupt it. We will explore the key themes of quality infrastructure and the Working Party on Regulatory Cooperation and Standardization Policies (WP.6) and how digitalization affects these. The panel will close with a period of discussion to articulate how this work can potentially be addressed within WP.6 in the future.

Target audience

The target audience includes all experts of WP.6, member States officials and the general public.