The conference is hosted on behalf of The SPICE User Group by the Institute of Information Science and Technologies, ISTI-CNR.

The recent decision to undertake a major revision and transformation of the international standard, moving from a single multi-part standard (ISO/IEC 15504) to a family of related Standards (the SPICE 33001-99 series on the common theme of Process Assessment) sets the scene for the Conference.

The new standards framework is designed to establish an open architecture, encouraging the formalisation of process models and documented assessment methods and their recognition within the standards community.