News

EURAMET's Board of Dircetors (BoD) Working Group for Capacity Building held its first annual meeting on 6 and 7 October 2016 in Dublin, Ireland. The Convenor of the group Omer Altan (TUBITAK UME) was regretfully unable to attend the meeting in person. He gave a video statement expressing his hope that the first annual meeting of the WGCB would initiate activities to meet the groups objectives for the next year, including greater cooperation and dialogue with Technical Committees, involvement of a greater number of EURAMET members in the group and exploration of new types of activities for capacity development.

The group was happy to report positive results in its focus areas:

• 2016 is the first year of financing human and institutional capacity building activities under the rules of the European Metrology Programme for Innovation and Research (EMPIR). The first training under the new conditions started successfully.
• The number of researcher mobility grants, supporting international mobility of researchers between EURAMET NMIs and DIs, increased significantly in 2016 compared to the previous year.
• The first set of research potential projects is running well, including numerous new participants. Possible improvements are seen in the strategic approach, e.g. with projects having a regional focus.

Guests from international organisations provided valuable input to the discussion. Anneke van Spronssen, WELMEC Chairperson, presented proposals for the future collaboration of institutions active in measurements that are of interest for legal metrology.

Ciaran Dearle, Senior Expert in DG research at the European Commission, gave a talk on cohesion policy and smart specialisation. The information will support the members of the group in their application for financial support from the European Structural and Investment Funds to further develop the metrology infrastructure.

BIPM's Director of the International Liaison and Communication department, Andy Henson, provided an overview on the worldwide development of metrology. He focussed on BIPM's Capacity Building & Knowledge Transfer Programme, in which EURAMET is actively participating such as the 2017 BIPM-EURAMET TC Leadership course.

The meeting was successfully hosted by the Irish National Metrology Institute, the National Standards Authority of Ireland (NSAI). "Our grateful thanks go to our colleagues at NSAI for organising this event and for their great hospitality", said Tanasko Tasić, EURAMET Capacity Building Officer.