UNE Standardisation and Innovation Awards

Its purpose is:

Disseminate knowledge of standardisation in the research and innovation community.
Raise awareness on the benefits of standardisation in R&D&I activities.
Promote the use of standardisation in this framework.

2025 Award for AIMPLAS

AIMPLAS, the Plastics and Related Materials Research Association, is a Technology Centre with more than 35 years of experience in the plastics sector, adding value to companies and helping to solve society's challenges through R&D&I. Aware of the importance of standardisation activities for these purposes, the company participates in 34 technical standardisation committees of UNE, CEN, and ISO, where, in addition to serving as a member, it also holds other roles of responsibility such as chairing or coordinating working groups.

It also includes standardisation activities in many new innovation projects proposed for European Union funding, for which it regularly relies on UNE as a partner, having invited it to join 12 new project proposals in recent years. Of these, 5 have received funding so far: ETERNAL (G.A. 101057668), to reduce the environmental impact of pharmaceuticals, GRECO (G.A. 101177661) on recyclable, biodegradable and circular food packaging, INN-PRESSME (G.A. 952972) on nano-enabled biomaterials, ECOBULK (G.A. 730456) on reuse, reconditioning and recycling of products, parts and materials, and BIOMAC (952941) on biopolymers in food packaging among other sectors.

A corporate member of UNE and with experience in its governing bodies, it also collaborated in the preparation of the conclusions of the UNE Prospective Study on Bioplastics, which was published in March 2025.

2024 Award to IRIS Technology Solutions

Founded in 2007 in Barcelona, IRIS is a leading company in Europe in the manufacture of photonic and artificial intelligence solutions to control industrial and production processes in real time. It is involved in a large number of collaborative research and innovation projects in the fields of applied photonics, information and communication technologies, and the circular bioeconomy. It collaborates with leading technology centres, institutes and universities to advance the state of art and expand the limits of technology, generating innovative and marketable products and solutions.

Along the way, IRIS has made UNE its strategic partner in order to include standardisation activities in those R&D&I projects, with which to support the transfer of its results to industrial practice.

Over the last few years, IRIS has shared with UNE up to eight Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe projects, in subjects as wide-ranging as ECOBULK (G.A. 730456), on the circular economy in the automotive, furniture and construction sectors; MIRACLE (G.A. 780598), on the application of photonics to the exploration and diagnosis of arthroscopy; AGRO2CIRCULAR (G.A. 101036838), on circular solutions for agri-food waste; W2W (G.A. 101138789), on the recovery of wood waste; BIO-UPTAKE (G.A. 101057049), on the use of biocompounds in smart plastic transformation processes; NANOBLOC (G.A. 101057597), on functional surface nanocoatings; ETERNAL (G.A. 101057668), to reduce the environmental impact of pharmaceuticals, and PRIM-ROCK (G.A. 101178403), on new mineral extraction processes.

2023 prize for the CIDETEC Foundation

CIDETEC is a private technology centre that has been dedicated to applied research since its creation in 1997. Its goal is to provide value to companies by attracting, generating and transferring technological knowledge.

As a tool for the transfer of knowledge, CIDETEC invited UNE to lead standardization activities in 15 proposals for new European innovation projects, five of which were financed by the European Union. The total number of projects shared between both organizations is seven, making the CIDETEC Foundation one of the main UNE partners for these activities, and the largest in the first two years of the current Horizon Europe funding programme (2021-2027).

These projects, most of them still underway, are already generating significant standardization results, such as the publication of a CEN Workshop Agreement, CWA 17896:2022, thanks to the AIRPOXY project, and a further two promoted by the DEFACTO project, currently in preparation.

2022 prize for Julián Gallego Yagüe of ALTER Technology TÜV Nord S.A.U.

Julián Gallego, Director of the Equipment Conformity Sales Department at ALTER Technology SÜV Nord S.A.U., was a pioneer in associating innovative projects, in many cases linked to European Union funding, with standardization activities that add value and visibility to the results of these projects. In 2013, EGNOSLAB was the first project in which Julián proposed collaborating with the UNE, which ended with the publication by CEN and CENELEC of CWA 17874:2015 "Verification of the performance levels of mass-market receivers enabled for EGNOS". That was followed by GALILEO ENABLED LABEL, which developed CWA 17486:2019 "Verification of the performance levels of mass-market receivers enabled for Galileo". The STARLITE project is currently being developed, resulting in the development by CEN/CENELEC of a new European EN standard on "Space - Galileo timing receivers - Functional and performance requirements and associated testing". Apart from these activities linked to specific innovative projects, Julián is actively involved in several UNE technical bodies in various sectors such as aerospace, quantum technologies, cybersecurity, physical security systems and alarms, automatic fire detection, etc., and he is the chair of CTN-UNE 28/SC 2 on "Unmanned aerial systems". Many of them are innovative sectors in which standardization activities are closely related to the advances made in new technologies and in solutions to the scientific and industrial challenges they face. Julián is convinced of the value of standardization in these areas, and he is an ambassador of both standards and the role played by standardization bodies.

2021 prize to CONTACTICA S.L.

CONTACTICA is an SME dedicated to consultancy that, in addition to other services related to market analysis, export consortia, life cycle analysis or taxation of R&D&I, is specialised in detecting the needs of different industries and proposing solutions that generate added value through the execution of R&D&I projects, providing services ranging from generation of idea, sourcing funding, and drafting the proposal to involvement in the execution of the project. CONTACTICA's collaboration with UNE on Horizon 2020 European innovation projects began in 2015. Since then, CONTACTICA has requested UNE to participate, both as partners and as a subcontractor, in 11 proposals for new projects in which standardisation activities have been introduced in this way. Three of them have obtained European Union funding: ALEHOOP (G.A. 887259), coordinated by CONTACTICA and in which UNE participates as a subcontractor, UP4HEALTH (G.A. 888003), in which CONTACTICA is a member and UNE subcontractor, and NeoGIANT (G.A. 101036768), in which both are partners. The role of expert facilitator in the drafting of proposals developed by CONTACTICA and other consultancies is fundamental in many cases to achieving excellent proposals that triumph in the very difficult competition of public funding. Its services are used by companies, universities or research centres, thus making them important players in the innovation environment. CONTACTICA has identified standardisation as a factor of excellence in its European R&D&I project proposals and includes specific activities in a large number of them. This is an important driving force for promoting the integration of standardisation into R&D&I projects through practice, raising interest about this integration with other participants who may otherwise be unaware of it.

2020 award to Fundación TECNALIA Research and Innovation

Since 2011, the TECNALIA Research and Innovation Foundation has been the leading applied research and technological development centre in Spain and one of the most important in Europe.

Its huge participation in European funding programmes such as Horizon 2020 includes a broad integration of standardisation in its projects. In many of them, sharing participation with UNE and other European standardisation organisations.

TECNALIA is also aware of the importance and benefits of participating in longer-term standardisation work, contributing its experience in technological innovation to more than 40 UNE Technical Standardisation Committees. In some of them, it performs major roles as chairs, secretariats or coordination of working groups.

The award was collected by Iñaki San Sebastián prize, CEO of TECNALIA Research and Innovation, on behalf of the entire organisation.

2019 Award to Joan Guasch Corominas, Director of International Development and Public R&D&I Programmes at EURECAT-Centro Tecnológico de Catalunya

Since the first contact with UNE in 2014, EURECAT has systematically included aspects of standardisation in a high percentage of its proposals for new projects. Fundació EURECAT is UNE's most common partner in new proposals for European R&D&I projects.

This commitment to the role of standardisation in R&D&I was generated and developed thanks to the motivation of different people within the organisation, from the pioneer Esther Hurtós to a long list of others. The 2019 prize was received by Joan Guasch, Director of International Development and Public R&D&I Programmes, in representation of them all.

In recent years, Joan has become one of the ambassadors for the use of standardisation in R&D&I forming part of the Advisory Board of the European project BRIDGIT2 'Saving the void between the communities of standardisation, research and innovation', and participating in UNE events and publications.

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2018 prize for Isabel Lacave Azpeitia, from Acciona Construcción, coordinator of the H2020 BRESAER project

Acciona was one of the first Spanish companies to include aspects of standardisation in European R&D&I projects, requesting UNE's collaboration on several occasions since 2012 to define and manage the corresponding tasks.

The BRESAER project 'Innovative adaptable enclosure solutions for building renovations' (H2020, G.A. 637186), is a success story in the use of standardisation, promoting proposals for the amendment of several European standards or the publication of CWA 17437:2019 'Innovative and adaptable envelopes on existing façades for building renovation. Guidelines for design, economic assessment, logistics and installation'.

Isabel Lacave Azpeitia, its coordinator, has resolutely supported the European standardisation system, participating in different events and publications, using her experience at BRESAER as an example of the gaps and needs that researchers and innovators have on standards. In this way, she has contributed to raising awareness among standardisation organisations about this need and to the search for the best solutions in their mutual approach.

European Standards+Innovation Awards

In 2019, the European standardisation organisations CEN and CENELEC launched the Standards+Innovation Awards to highlight the important contribution of researchers, innovators and entrepreneurs to standardisation.

The awards consist of four categories: European projects, Individual researchers and innovators, Standardisation professionals and, since 2021, Young researchers.

Various Spanish successes have been achieved, such as the award in 2019 for the H2020 SMR project, coordinated by the University of Navarra, in 2020 for the H2020 NEXTOWER project, with the participation of CIEMAT and UNE, in 2022 for the H2020 ARETE project, in which VICOMTECH and UNE were involved through a subcontract, the 2022 Young Researcher award to Iván Navarro González, in 2023 for the H2020 D^2EPC project in which UNE and SGS Tecnos were partners, in 2023 to Aitor Aragón from UNE, as head of technical standardisation bodies, or the project H2020 INKplant, winner in 2024, where Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, the Biotechnology Institute I+D and UNE took part from Spain.

Discover all the candidates and winners