The aim of the project is to investigate the dissemination and diffusion of scientific knowledge about international standards, which are jointly developed by science, industry and other stakeholders in consensual processes, in companies using a web-based approach. Scientific publications referenced in a standard are essential for its actual implementation. The generated knowledge is thus anchored in a standard. If this standard is implemented by a company, this is a concrete indication of knowledge transfer (KT) in the sense of a concrete channeling of scientific and technological knowledge. The importance of standards as a channel of interactive knowledge and technology transfer has been largely neglected in the discussion so far. To investigate the importance of this channel for KT, the first step is to identify and analyze the scientific publications referenced in the more than 20,000 standards published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). In a second step, corporate websites will be examined, both at the beginning of the project and throughout its duration, to determine which international standards, if any, are applied in companies.

The results show that international standardization organizations prefer to include highly cited scientific papers in standards, which leads to high-quality knowledge transfer and increased visibility of the publications. Web scraping of German company websites proved to be an effective method for identifying the implementation of international standards, in particular ISO 9001, ISO 14001, and ISO/IEC 27001, with larger SMEs in the manufacturing sector in southern Germany in particular citing corresponding management system standards. Companies that implement such standards are significantly more likely to innovate – most pronounced in the case of ISO/IEC 27001 and small companies with up to ten employees. A second web scraping in 2024 showed a slight decline in mentions of ISO 9001, while ISO/IEC 27001 was mentioned more frequently; in addition, over 80% of companies that mention standards are actually certified.