A huge step forward has been taken in making Australian Standards more accessible with Australia’s peak standards development body asking global publishers and distributors to provide market terms on the content.

Labelled as the ‘Request for Proposal’, the Proposal is designed on an open basis and is available to the broad global market.  Standards Australia is now seeking potential partners after their contract with SAI Global Pty Limited is ending in December 2018.

The current contract between the two contracts means that SAI Global provides for a further five years after December 2018 but only on ‘market terms’. The proposal process will be done in a way that is consistent with Standard Australia’s obligations to SAI Global.

Australian Standards chief executive Dr. Bronwyn Evans says that given there was such a huge demand for better access to Australia Standards, she’s happy that there has been a transparent process.

“We are excited about getting to market terms. We have pursued this market based process because we want to hear from the innovators, from those investing in the customer experience and providing solutions that meet customer and publisher needs,” says Bronwyn.

“Our stakeholders have consistently told us they want more. This process will allow us to understand directly from the market the current and future-focused distribution models that are evolving and support our transition following the end of the initial term of the contract with SAI Global.”

Standards Australian Board chairman Richard Brooks says that there is a broad evaluation criterion and they’re looking for partners that have experience in fields that are relevant to Standards Australia opportunities.

“At the core of our focus is the capacity to provide high quality content distribution services to Australian industry, government and the community. Our public purpose is our first priority. This must be supported by market based distribution arrangements set in an open and transparent way,” says Richard.

“We look forward to hearing from content distributors about how they are partnering, innovating, improving end user experiences and supporting technical publishers to deliver solutions to customers.”

The Request for Proposal process is open from today. Registration is open until 30 November 2017 and RFP will close 14 February 2018.