From experience we know that the work in international standardization bodies can be very time consuming and cumbersome. The reasons for this are manifold: the working groups need to run through long-lasting administrative processes, and often political issues hamper the timely completion of the planned work and may cause results that diverge from the expectations of the participating parties. In consequence, the participation in standardization activities is often expensive in terms of time and resources for individual organizations, and may not result in the desired outcomes.

The aim of STI International is to overcome these problems in order to improve the prospects of success in technology standardization for its members. For this, we aim at better preparing and coordinating the standardization activities for the semantic technologies that are developed within the affiliated research efforts and projects. With respect to the known difficulties, the STI standardization strategy is based on the following principles:

1. Early identification of the standardization aims
2. Pre-Standardization: professional preparation of the technical specifications with assured support by a significant consortium before submission
3. Joint and coordinated work of STI members in standardization bodies.

The below figure illustrates the operational realization of this strategy within STI International. At first, the prospective standardizations activities are identified. For this, we determine the important topics and the technological challenges on the basis of the STI research roadmaps as well as from the new and ongoing research projects. We also monitor the activities and trends in the relevant standardization bodies. Then, the actual research work on the development of new technologies is carried out in STI working groups, which each are designated to a specific topic or technology. In the next step, the central results of the working groups are gathered and prepared as suitable pre-standard specifications, which are then submitted as proposals to the respective standardization body. Then, STI International will coordinate the participation and work in the standardization bodies for the interested STI members. Finally, we will disseminate the successful technology standardizations via STI International in order to improve the outreach. and impact. We strongly believe that this strategy can very much improve the success and impact of the research carried out within STI International.