Celebration of the 100th Anniversary of PKN
On May 9th, 2024 we celebrated the 100th Anniversary of PKN.
The celebration began with an international conference entitled: „Standardization in the face of new challenges. Standards as a tool to support the European Union competition policy and the Sustainable Development Goals”.
Meeting at the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology
The participants of the conference were welcomed by Waldemar Sługocki – Secretary of State in the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology. He emphasized that it was no coincidence, that the PKN event was being held in the building of the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology, the ministry responsible for economic affairs, as effective cooperation between the Ministry and PKN had been going on continuously for over one hundred years. He expressed hope that it would continue for years to come and it would benefit the development of Polish economy.
Ewa Zielińska – President of PKN and Teresa Sosnowska – Vice-President for Standardization introduced the history of the institution and its achievements to date, as well as plans for the future. They also thanked for the current cooperation and commitment to the development of standardization at the national and international levels.
Experiences and challenges related to PKN joining the structures of the European standardization organizations CEN and CENELEC
The next part of the conference included discussion panels. The first panel, dealt with the experiences and challenges of the expansion of European standardization organizations CEN and CENELEC concerning new members - including PKN, which was related to the accession of these countries to the European Union. The speakers for this part of the conference were: Elena Santiago Cid – Director-General of the CEN-CENELEC Management Centre, Priit Kikas – Managing Director of the Estonian Centre for Standardization and Accreditation, Olivier Peyrat – Director-General of AFNOR, CEN Vice-President Policy, Ewa Zielińska – President of PKN, CENELEC Vice-President Policy.
Since January 1st, 2004, PKN has been the member of European Committee for Standardization CEN and European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization CENELEC. This enabled Polish stakeholders to actively participate in the development of European standards, which are key to the European single market and removing barriers to trade . However this transformation required significant changes in both national standards bodies and in the organizations themselves.
Challenges facing standardization – the role of standards in the context of „green” Europe and supporting the Sustainable Development Goals
The second discussion panel was attended by Marek Roszak – PhD Eng, President of Polish Forum ISO 9000 Club, Stefano Calzolari – President of the European Committee for Standardization CEN, Wolfgang Niedziella – President of the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization CENELEC, Luis Jorge Romero – Director-General of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute ETSI, Sergio Mujica – Secretary General of the International Organization for Standardization ISO, Philippe Metzger – Secretary General of the International Electrotechnical Commission IEC. They discussed the challenges facing standardization in supporting the Sustainable Development Goals, inter alia: the fact that standardization must evolve in line with current trends and how PKN and Polish experts can contribute to this.
The Anniversary of PKN was honored by the presence of Krzysztof Gawkowski – Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Digital Affairs. He emphasized his experience with standardization and appreciated the knowledge, experience and commitment of Polish experts in the development of standardization.
PKN’s awards
As every year, PKN also honored individuals and entities that have particularly distinguished themselves in supporting the standardization system. PKN grants the following awards – Promoter of Education about Standardization and Standardization Compass. The awards were established in 2015 on the initiative of the former President of PKN – Tomasz Schweitzer.
During the anniversary conference, PKN awards were presented by Krzysztof Gawkowski – Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Affairs and Ewa Zielińska – the President of PKN.
The title of the Promoter of Education about Standardization was awarded to Agnieszka Podrazik from the AGH University Main Library, the Standardization Compass was awarded to Marek Pawlik PhD Eng from the Railway Research Institute and the Łukasiewicz Research Network – Institute of Ceramics and Building Materials.
We would like to thank all guests for their presence and the panelists for their valuable inspirations. We hope that all wishes received on the occasion of the 100th Anniversary of PKN will come true.
