EDU4Standards.eu is proud to share that our project partner Prof. Nizar Abdelkafi (Politecnico di Milano) has been awarded the CEN-CENELEC Standards & Innovation Award in the new “Education” category.
The award was presented on 13 November 2025 in Brussels, during the EU flagship event “From knowledge to impact: Shaping Europe’s next innovation wave” at the Centre Borschette.
This is the first-ever edition of the Education category, making the recognition particularly significant. Prof. Abdelkafi has been a key contributor to EDU4Standards.eu, actively advancing how standardisation is taught in European higher education. Within the project, he is closely involved in:
- Designing and implementing teaching pilots that integrate standards into courses and programmes;
- Supporting the development and refinement of the Teacher Support Tool, which helps lecturers embed standardisation in their teaching;
- Contributing to Academic Standards Days and broader outreach activities that raise awareness of standards among students and academic staff.
Beyond EDU4Standards, Prof. Abdelkafi has consistently advocated for the strategic role of standards in innovation and competitiveness, including through his textbook and teaching activities, as well as collaborations with UNI (the Italian national standardisation body) and ETSI.
Reflecting on the award, he underlined that education in standardisation is becoming a strategic priority for Europe’s digital, green and socially responsible future and emphasised his gratitude to CEN and CENELEC, Politecnico di Milano, UNI, ETSI, his EDU4Standards colleagues, and his students for their ongoing support and engagement.
For EDU4Standards, this recognition is also an important signal to confirm the relevance of our project’s objectives, highlight the impact that university teachers can have in shaping future professionals who understand and use standards, and reinforce the need to mainstream standardisation in curricula across disciplines.
We warmly congratulate Prof. Abdelkafi on this well-deserved award and look forward to continuing our collaboration as EDU4Standards enters its final year, scaling up pilots, Academic Standards Days and teaching resources for the wider community of educators.
