📋 Tender Overview
Today, the Biden-Harris Administration released the Implementation Roadmap for the U.S. Governments May 2023 National Standards Strategy for Critical and Emerging Technology (USG NSSCET). The roadmap sustains and reinforces the U.S. Governments commitment to standards development led by the private sector and enhanced by partnerships with public institutions and calls for robust engagement in the standardization of critical and emerging technologies (CETs) to protect U.S. national and economic security.
Standards are essential to commerce and to the safe, reliable, and interoperable functioning of a broad array of essential products and services. Standards help ensure that technologies and parts from many suppliers work together seamlessly, and facilitate efficient operation of services and manufacturing while facilitating a competitive marketplace for goods and services. Standards provide industries and innovators with a common language that facilitates trade, simplifies transactions, accelerates innovation, and enables people to work across disciplines and borders toward common goals.
Critical and emerging technologies have been designated by the Administration as potentially significant to U.S. national security, including economic security and the defense of democratic values. Recognizing the strategic value of CETs, our competitors abroad are seeking to influence international standards development to their own advantage, placing at risk leadership opportunities for U.S. innovators and industry and access to quality products and services that benefit all.
The Implementation Roadmap recommends steps the U.S. Government should take to realize the objectives of the USG NSSCET. The roadmap is organized around eight lines of effort for the U.S. Government, with an understanding that success will require extensive and sustained coordination with the U.S. private sector and like-minded allies. The Implementation Roadmap is based on information collected through a Request for Information, stakeholder engagements, consultations, and formal recommendations from federal advisory committees including the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Visiting Committee on Advanced Technology.
The U.S. Government is committed to supporting and upholding private sector-led standards development processes that are:
Built on transparency;
Strengthen long-standing public private partnerships;
And, reflect the U.S. commitment to free and fair market competition in which the best technologies come to market.
Approach
The United States is committed to a private sector-led standards system that is inclusive, diverse, and draws on robust research and innovation. Through clear actions and effective diplomacy, the Departments of Commerce and State, together with the Office of the United States Trade Representative, will continue to work with private sector leadership including the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) to engage international partners with an aim to promote this approach globally.
The ANSI administers and coordinates the private sector-led U.S. voluntary standards and conformity assessment system, while the NIST coordinates Federal Government engagement in standards activities. The USG NSSCET complements the United States Standards Strategy (USSS) published by the ANSI and supports, complements, and further communicates U.S. Government priorities for CET standards development. Through SDOs, the U.S. private sector leads standardization activities globally to respond to market demand, with substantial contributions from the U.S. Government, academia, industry, and civil society groups. Industry associations, consortia, and other private sector groups work together within this system to develop standards to solve specific challenges and respond to national priorities.
We also call upon standards stakeholders, including representatives of industry, start-ups, small- and medium-sized enterprises, the academic community, and civil society organizations to work with U.S. Government officials and ANSI on creative solutions to lower barriers, incentivize greater participation, and protect the integrity of international standards development through robust investment and engagement. Building on increased investment in Research and Development (R&D) through initiatives like the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the 21st Century Cures Act, the Implementation Roadmap focuses on short-term actions and long-term sustained outcomes that promote global trade, interoperability in manufacturing, and U.S. competitiveness and innovation through CET standardization.
In the short-term, the U.S. Government will take immediate action to include but not limited to:
Identifying opportunities to increase U.S. Government pre-standardization R&D and standards participation efforts;
Tracking and evaluating current U.S. Government CET standards education grants and programs that promote, foster, and remove barriers to U.S. stakeholder participation in national and international standards activities, and;
Tracking and evaluating current U.S. Government technology cooperation agreements and international mechanisms for standards-related communication and cooperation.
For long-term sustained implementation outcomes, the U.S. Government will take steps to:
Enhance standards coordination across the federal government;
Enhance standards coordination with the private sector;
Enhance standards policy coordination between the U.S. Government and foreign governments;
Recognize and incentivize federal agency engagement in standardization;
Provide strong and sustained funding for CET R&D and pre-standardization coordination;
Engage academia as a critical partner to the private sector in standards development efforts;
Enhance educational efforts in standards;
Develop and sustain communications about standards.
