The Role of Standardization in Research and Innovation projects: Case study of Ni-based materials testing for energy applications

The use of standardisation in research and innovation projects aims to increase the impact and significance of the results obtained by including them in new standards. By translating validated research outcomes into pre-normative and normative documents, standardization facilitates reproducibility, comparability, and industrial uptake of emerging technologies, while supporting regulatory alignment and risk-informed decision-making. This is in line with the European Policy on Knowledge Valorisation and the ERA Code of Practice on Standardisation, which recommend using tools such as standardisation, among others, to make research results benefit economic activity, welfare and safety in Europe.

Within this context, the NICKEFFECT project integrates standardization as a strategic activity to maximize the impact of its scientific results in the field of non-noble metal-based coatings and electrodes for hydrogen generation. The involvement of UNE (Spanish Association for Standardization) a leading European standardization body with extensive experience in R&I projects, enabled the systematic identification and prioritization of project outputs with high standardization potential. Several pre-normative topics were evaluated, leading to the selection of the most industrially relevant topic as the technical basis for a CEN-CENELEC Workshop Agreement (CWA).

The resulting CWA 18302, “Electrochemical characterisation at laboratory scale of non-noble porous metal-based electrodes for hydrogen generation in acidic medium”, developed under the technical leadership of CIDETEC, provides harmonized recommendations for laboratory-scale electrochemical characterization. The work addresses key methodological aspects relevant to porous metal coatings, including test conditions, performance metrics, and data reporting, with particular attention to durability, activity, and reproducibility. By establishing a common characterization framework, the CWA supports SSbD principles by enabling consistent assessment of performance-sustainability trade-offs and facilitating comparability across research and industrial laboratories and integration of the research data into the decision support tools.

This contribution demonstrates how standardization can act as an effective bridge between advanced materials research, SSbD objectives, and industrial implementation, particularly for emerging coating technologies aimed at sustainable hydrogen production.