EURAS Proceedings 2006

This is the 10t h anniversary of the European Academy for Standardisation's Annual Workshop. We feel that this is quite an achievement, especially given the fact that standards research continues to be considered a rather arcane subject by many. But with ten years of successful work in the area under our belt it would seem that the standards research is here to stay. Indeed, the interest among both researchers and practitioners is on the rise; we see more and more standards-related sessions appearing at various conferences, and some full-blown research projects in this domain have been funded by the EU. Virtually all these activities, however, pretty much focus on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). To the best of my knowledge, the EURAS workshops still are the only platform where standards from all disciplines are discussed. And this, we believe, is a very good thing.
The title of this workshop is 'Standardisation in an Enlarged Europe'. After all, this is the first EURAS workshop after the enlargement of the European Union. Thus, it seems very appropriate that the workshop is hosted by one of the new member states - our thanks to the Department of State Information Systems (RISO) of the Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, and especially to Taavi Valdlo, for volunteering to host the event.
As you will see, the programme covers a fairly wide range of subjects, even including
historical and linguistic aspects. Application areas addressed include, of course, ICT, but also chemistry and the world at large.