To be registered, you have 2 possibilities:
- to become a member of your national standardization body (NSB), or
- to apply for a liaison
1) Membership through a national standard body (NSB)
There is 1 NSB in each country. The expert needs to contact the NSB in the country where he/she is resident. The list of NSBs can be found her: https://www.iso.org/members.html
As a nominated expert you can work actively in the committee, and you have a right to vote and comment on all the committee’s documents.
As soon as you a registered by your NSB, you will have access to all documents and will be invited to meetings, etc.
This is the simplest and quickest way of becoming part of the work.
2) Membership as a liaison
If you are a non-profit organization operating globally, you can apply for membership as a liaison. A liaison membership is dependent on the approval by ISO Central Secretariat (ISO/CS).
A liaison follows the work via a nominated officer, who speaks on behalf of the organization. As a liaison you can participate and comment on the deliverables, but you have no voting rights.
Criteria for becoming a liaison are the following:
- Be not for profit organization
- Demonstrate through its activities and membership that it has the competence and expertise to contribute to the development of International Standards or the authority to promote their implementation
- Have a process in place for stakeholder engagement and consensus decision-making to develop the input it provides, i.e. a mechanism for sharing ISO drafts, seeking out stakeholder views and consolidating these to form a consensus-based position
- Must be a legal entity (considered as such if it can provide its legal statutes document)
- Must be membership-based and open to members worldwide or over a broad region
An application form must be provided to ISO/CS for the approval as a liaison: https://www.iso.org/iso-forms-model-agendas-standard-letters.html
The application form shall include the following aspects:
- Reason for liaison request
- Expected benefits for applicant
- Expected benefits for TC/SC/WG
- Short-, medium- and long-term goals of liaison
Approval process:
- The application form must be submitted to the ISO/TC 34/SC 20 Secretariat.
- The form will be reviewed by the Secretariat before it is sent to ISO/CS.
- ISO/CS will confirm that the eligibility criteria have been fulfilled and then consult with the NSB where the organization making the application has its headquarters. In case of objection, the matter will be referred to the Technical Management Board for decision. If there is no objection, the application will be sent back to the Secretariat with a request to circulate it for vote in the committee.
- A resolution must be taken by the committee, either at a meeting or via a ballot, with a two-thirds majority of P-members voting “approved ” for the liaison to be accepted.
