Standards frame, guide, and normalize almost every aspect of our lives, promoting best industry and safety practices, and ensuring the interoperability of such practices. Canada has standards for health care, information technology, accounting, agriculture, plumbing, electricity, and numerous other sectors of our society.

Through the process of consensus interpretation and agreement, standards tell us what is required in order to meet current policies and other normative references.

By eliminating the variability in interpreting policies and other normative references, standards provide researchers with clear, concise requirements upon which they can develop their unique procedures.