Standards make the world go round

On the 2 March 2020, the COST Action - Harmonising standardisation strategies to increase efficiency and competitiveness of European life-science research (CHARME) - held its final conference in Brussels After four years of successful work, the members of the COST Action CHARME met in Brussels to summarise the achievements and to discuss future perspectives and challenges for standardisation in the life sciences. Following the motto "Standards make the world go round", the outcomes of the COST Action are manifold and introduced some basic concepts and definitions that support a better understanding of the challenges and requirements. The results of this COST Action's network will be subject of a White Paper addressing the needs of standardisation, including a catalogue of requirements and recommendations to be disseminated to decision-makers at all levels to enable the implementation of standards in the daily workflow of research in academia and industry. The Action, ending this month, has given the opportunity to its members to tentatively presenting a set of preliminary requirements to develop further the harmonisation of standards. We hope this will inspire other Actions for the future.