Thursday, 27 March 2025, brought INSTAR &the TTA (Telecommunications Technology Association) together in Nice, France, for their first official joint workshop “Collaboration on international ICT standardisation: Joint roadmaps development”, a key milestone taking place six months after signing their Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) aimed at strengthening their collaboration.
The meeting marked a significant step forward in reinforcing EU-Republic of Korea (ROK) cooperation on ICT standards. By bringing together leading experts from both regions, the workshop provided a unique opportunity to build mutual understanding and advance joint priorities in 5G+/6G, AI, Cybersecurity, Digital ID, Data Technologies, IoT, and Quantum Technologies.
The structure of the full-day meeting included a joint plenary session, where both organisations presented an overview of their respective priorities and structures. This was followed by parallel sessions focusing on specific topics where experts from both regions engaged in targeted and in-depth discussions.
From the European Commission DG CNECT Carlos Lopez Rodriguez joined the meeting. Representing INSTAR, Tanya Suarez, INSTAR Coordinator, Damir Filipovic, INSTAR International Activities Leader, and the leaders of the INSTAR European Task Forces participated, to present the INSTAR roadmaps and contribute to the collaborative efforts.
“Standardisation cannot be achieved by a single country or organisation. INSTAR brings together a diverse, multi-stakeholder community of experts from across the EU—making it a valuable partner for collaborative efforts. European initiatives, such as StandICT.eu, exhibit a high degree of alignment with TTA’s education and expert support programs in the field of ICT standardization. TTA’s support enables experts to participate actively in international standardization, strengthening their technical skills while also fostering leadership, networking, and global influence. By cultivating next-generation professionals, the program ensures the continuity and long-term expansion of Korea’s presence in global standardization. Establishing strategic partnerships has the potential to foster greater consistency in standard contributions across international standardization bodies.
Minah Lee, TTA Principal Researcher”
“Physical networking is still the best way to pull out the best ideas and find opportunities for concrete cooperation and within the INSTAR Cybersecurity & eIDentity Task Force we came away with a great set of practical measures of activity. The TTA are also a truly active Association, and we found out that they have their very own EU funded StandICT.eu complete with mentoring programme, online course materials for students and financial support to experts to work in SDO working groups and this has been running for the past 22 years which is a great way of seeing how both these initiatives can exchange best practices.
In fact, through its Academy, TTA also organises regular seminars on the latest ICT standards and technologies and delivers a course on ICT standardisation as part of an expert incubating programme, in line with the type of support offered by StandICT.eu. In addition, TTA acts as a specialised institution for ICT testing and certification.
Seeing mutual priority areas such as: Authentication, Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs), the interoperability of digital wallets for storing credentials are global challenges that necessitate an international dialogue,which we value within INSTAR and look forward to strengthening this synergy.
Silvana Muscella, Trust-IT Services CEO and INSTAR Cybersecurity/eID Task Force lead”
From TTA, Soonil CHA, Director of TTA’s Standardisation Department, and Kyoungseok OH, Chief Researcher of TTA’s Standardisation Division, provided an overview of the ICT Standardisation Roadmap of TTA.
“This workshop marks the first step in the INSTAR-TTA collaboration to identify and define shared priorities for the joint roadmaps we aim to present to international standard development organisations.
Damir Filipovic, AIOTI Secretary general”
During each session, dedicated TTA representatives were appointed to work closely with the INSTAR experts, achieving preliminary alignment on shared standardisation priorities and laying the groundwork for future joint actions.
The Cybersecurity/eID session concluded with a set of initial takeaways, reflecting the key outcomes of the discussions.
Presentation to the INSTAR-TTA workshop material to key SDOs
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Already in Q2 2025, Scott Cadzow (INSTAR Cybersecurity/eID ETF) will present the INSTAR-TTA workshop materials to key SDO working groups, such as TC SAI, TC CYBER, and TC ESI and connect each of these TCs with the relevant TTA working groups, to promote an exchange of their work programme. Other practical steps on joint priorities will be:
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Preparation of a Liaison with ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27/WG 4 – Security controls and services: Jan devMeer (INSTAR IoT/ Edge/ Cloud/ Internet ETF) will prepare a liaison request towards and from “ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27/WG 4 – Security controls and services” projects focusing on Data Provenance and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) in the coming weeks.
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Synchronisation and synergies: By June 2025, INSTAR and TTA technical experts will intensify efforts to synchronise European and international SDO activities with the ongoing INSTAR-TTA dialogue, while also exploring synergies with other relevant European and Korean initiatives.
Moreover, we were delighted to have our ETF members with us online where:
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Sebastian Elfors, Senior Architect and CSO at IDnow, highlighted that there are Zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) are currently under discussion in the EU within the EUDI Wallet Architecture and Reference Framework (ARF). See the discussion here.
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Erik Andersen, CEO at Andersen’s L-Service, stressed the importance of migration strategies for cryptographic algorithms and emphasised that post-quantum cryptography should be a global priority.
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Paolo Campegiani, Head of Innovation and Improvement at Bit4id, also suggested authentication as a priority area: The presence of an authentication mechanism is essential. Moreover, Interoperability of digital wallets for storing credentials shared by the Digital G20 should be prioritised.
Moreover, Interoperability of digital wallets for storing credentials shared by the Digital G20 should be prioritised.
From the TTA side the following priorities are high on South Korea’s agenda to pursue together, Jason Kim, Chair of the Korea Association for biometric identity security: Authentication, ID Management, Out-of-band server authentication, Digital Wallet, Development of a Digital Wallet Framework, Security Requirement Standards Interoperability Interoperability and alignment with international efforts.
INSTAR participation at the TTA conference
The INSTAR consortium and ETF experts will examine cooperation opportunities to contribute to the TTA conference in Seoul this Autumn from the 3–5 November 2025), with the aim of engaging with partners from Japan, and Singapore to expand the cooperation framework.
In this occasion, INSTAR and TTA will update the content of the EU-ROK joint roadmap, which will be developed in the coming months, in preparation for its official release in December 2025.
This participation will be key to refining the roadmap based on the latest exchanges, ensuring it reflects both regions’ evolving priorities. Furthermore, the event will offer the opportunity to advance collaboration with Japan, enabling INSTAR and TTA to present and compare the shared priorities identified in the EU-ROK joint roadmap with Japanese experts.
The INSTAR-TTA workshop marked the beginning of a promising and ambitious journey towards stronger and more coordinated EU-Korea cooperation on international ICT standardisation.
Looking ahead, the engagement at the TTA Conference in Seoul 3rd -5th November 2025 and the finalisation of the EU-ROK joint roadmap by the end of 2025 will further consolidate these efforts.