Training Session on CEN-CLC/Guide 17: Writing Standards with SMEs in Mind
📅 Date: 9 December 2025
📍 Hybrid session (Teams & BEC offices)
🕑 Time: 10:00 – 12:00
Standards are essential tools for ensuring safety, interoperability, and quality across industries. However, they can sometimes become barriers when their complexity or cost prevents smaller organizations from implementing them. To address this, CEN and CENELEC developed Guide 17 – “Guidance for Writing Standards Taking into Account Micro, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) Needs.”
This training session will help experts understand how to draft standards that reflect the capacity and realities of SMEs, ensuring inclusivity without compromising rigor.
Training Focus
- Key considerations for developing standards best adapted to SMEs.
- Methods for identifying and assessing provisions that may disproportionately impact SMEs.
- Practical approaches to reduce unintended negative effects on SMEs.
- An overview of CEN-CLC/Guide 17 and its checklist for standards developers.
Trainers
The session will be led by M. Frédéric DUFOUR and Ms. Maitane OLABARRIA from Small Business Standards (SBS), a non-profit organization dedicated to defending the interests of SMEs in European and international standardization.