Financing of the standardizing system

A necessary complementarity between experts and operators

Whatever the type of document to be developped (NF, EN, ISO standards ...), the standardizing system needs both experts and operators (i.e. standardization offices, AFNOR).

Experts and operators are totally complementary as any initiative involving experts work requires that adequate means are provided by one or more operators.

The standardizing system is funded on the one hand by the State and on the other hand by the various socioeconomic partners concerned with the development and use of the standardizing documents.

With subsidies granted by the Ministry of industry to AFNOR, the state only supports missions of general interest (development of horizontal standards in the general interest, management of public enquiries, approval of standards, coordination and running of the French standardizing system - representing approximately 20% of the necessary resources for AFNOR's standardization department) and national priorities.

It should be noted that the governmental authorities sometimes supplement these subsidies with specific agreements when they want their experts to participate in some particular standardization work.

Financing of sectorial standardization work

Sectorial standardization work must be financed in its entirety by all the partners concerned.
Therefore participation is limited by AFNOR and the standardization offices to partners who are really involved in the standardization work, in particular through financial and/or logistic support.

The sectorial standardization offices have for a long time been exclusively funded by the trade associations of their economic sectors. Thus, UNM was essentially funded by the mechanical engineering industry with the contributions of the trade association, of FIM (Federation of Mechanical engineering industry) and of the various Industrial Technical Research Centers (CETIM, CETIAT, EDF, PSA, Renault). Some outside partners also take part in the financing as major customers of the mechanical engineering industries.

To ensure improved equity among the partners in the financial contribution system, outside participation has been extended to all partners taking part in the development of standards as part of a general contract policy. As a matter of fact, UNM does not prepare standards for its own needs; it provides support to experts who take part in the work of its committees. Within the standardization committees, the experts bring their experience and wishes, and therefore contribute to the development of normative documents for their future use. The development of these documents requires that the standardizing office provides its knowledge of standardization, and the necessary dedicated logistics.