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Using standardization in tandem with research, development and innovation projects is celebrated and recognised at a national and EU level. Here are some of the awards available to those who innovate with Standards development.

NSAI Standards Innovation Award

Since 2018, the ‘NSAI Standards Innovation Award’ is presented annually to an NSAI Standards Expert(s) and their organisation for having ‘embedded Standards development into their R&D or innovation processes’, in line with the national research and innovation strategy, ‘Innovation 2020’. The innovation award is presented along with two other long standing NSAI awards (the ‘1997 Award’ and ‘Caighdean Oir‘ award) during the annual ‘NSAI Standards Forum‘ event.  

The newer ‘NSAI Standards Innovation Award’ illustrates how ‘Standards + Innovation’ contributes to success in business or the public sector, to advancing innovations and to turning ideas into national and/or international socio-economic impact, and potentially increased international exports in the case of commercial organisations. In effect, our national innovation award identifies and formally recognises innovative enterprises, organisations (public or private), research & innovation institutions/centres, SMEs and start-ups that have used Standards development to help them to innovate successfully at national, European and/or international levels. 

Past Winners

  • 2018: Sean McNulty, Chairman & Director at Dolmen (Design and Innovation consultancy).  Also Chair of NSAI's national mirror committee on ‘Innovation Management’ 
  • 2019: Gerald Craddock & James Hubbard, Centre for Excellence in Universal Design at National Disability Authority.  Also Chair & member (respectively) of NSAI's national mirror committee on 'Universal Design'
  • 2020: Dr Pamela Hussey & Dr Subhashas Das of the Centre eIntegrated Care in Dublin City University.  Fiona Delaney, founded and CEO of the start-up Origin Chain Networks and editor of ISO Use Case Standards on Blockchain & Distributed Ledger Technologies.
  • 2021: Dr Steven Darby and team from the ‘Centre for Advanced Photonics and Process Analysis’ (CAPPA) in Munster Technological University.  Award for research that informed key new NSAI and European standards for community face coverings in the context of the COVID 19 pandemic.
  • 2022: Dr. Marcus Keane, & Miguel Blanes Restoy, both from the University of Galway was awarded the NSAI Innovation Award for their work on the GEOFIT Project which is the deployment of novel GEOthermal systems, technologies and tools for energy efficient building retrofitting. David Keeley, Senior Executive (Innovation), Enterprise Ireland, was awarded an NSAI Innovation Award, for his work on using ISO 56000 Innovation Management Series as its framework for improving the innovation capabilities and performance of companies through the use of an Innovation Scorecard.
  • 2023 Winners

    • Winner of Individual Researcher/Innovator Award | Delaram Golpayegani, Delaram is a PhD researcher at the SFI ADAPT Centre, Trinity College Dublin, her research explores how semantic web technologies can be utilised for expressing, documenting, and sharing risks associated with development and use of AI systems according to the proposed AI regulations, international and European standards, and trustworthy AI guidelines
    • Winner of the Project Award | Dr. Alan McGibney and Dr. Susan Rea, Susan Rea is the Director of Research at the Nimbus Centre at MTU and Alan is Group Lead for IoT Systems and User Interaction at the Nimbus Centre and is the co-coordinator of the DENiM project, The DENiM Project itself is an EU funded Horizon 2020 Project concerned with creating a digital platform to allow industrial stakeholders better manage the energy efficiency of their manufacturing system
    • Young Researcher Award | Dylan Doherty, is a Researcher from Dublin City University and part of the Grain-4-Lab Project, The Grain-4-Lab project is concerned with 3D-printing of compostable, PLA-based (a bioplastic) single-use petri dishes. As part of Dylan’s work on  3D-printed compostable, PLA-based single-use petri dishes , he subjected them to rigorous testing, in accordance with a number of ISO standards . 

European Standards+Innovation Awards

In 2019, CEN and CENELEC launched the Standards + Innovation Awards to acknowledge the important contribution of research and innovation to standardization and celebrating the contributions of researchers, innovators and entrepreneurs to standardization. Nominations for these awards comes from the CEN and CENELEC national members of the 34 EU Member States, candidate countries and EFTA Members.

An annual award is presented to a European Research / Innovation project (H2020 / Horizon Europe) who successfully contributes to standardization. A second award is given to an individual who successfully introduces her/his research outcome or innovation into standardization, thereby creating impact for her/his work.

You can learn more about the Standards + Innovation Awards, including past Irish nominees and winners, here

Past Irish Winners

  • Fiona Delaney, Founder and CEO of Origin Chain Networks. Find out more here
  • Winner Young Research Award | Dr Sweta Malik, Sweta is currently a PhD candidate at Insight Centre for Data Analytics, National University of Ireland, Galway. Her research work focused on Standards, Policy, and Regulatory Frameworks for Efficient local electrical energy markets, with a specific emphasis on standards, find out more about the 2023 winners.

Listen to Dr Sweta Malik as she speaks as part of the HSbooster.eu Training Series on Standardisation in Practice, that aims to make European NSBs' activities closer to researchers. This purpose of this training session is to explain the role of the NSBs based on the case of the national standardisation body of Ireland – NSAI. Furthermore, the winner of the prestigious Young Researcher Award by CEN and CENELEC, Dr Sweta Malik, will present on how to identify gaps in the current standards. 

Watch the HSbooster Training Academy Session 5

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