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Celebration of 30 years of collaboration in European metrology

The main lecture room at CEM, the Spanish National Metrology Institute, was filling quickly in the morning of 18 May 2017: Europe's metrology community gathered to celebrate EURAMET's 30th anniversary. In 2017 EURAMET celebrates its 10th birthday; inaugurated on the 11 January 2007. 20 years earlier, in 1987, its predecessor EUROMET was founded. These two important events have resulted in 30 years of close collaboration in European measurement.

To mark the celebration a symposium was held, consisting of contributions from top speakers. All of the speakers were involved in EURAMET's development over the last three decades, for example as Chairpersons or Vice-Chairpersons.

The keynote speech was given by Klaus von Klitzing, Nobel Prize Winner in Physics and member of EURAMET's Research Council. The audience enjoyed his talk about the 'Quantum Hall effect: The driving force for a new international system of units' and the story of its discovery.

In his role as Master of Ceremony, Andrew Wallard (Emeritus Director of the BIPM) led the international participants smartly through the event. The entertaining symposium was divided into several short sessions with very lively contributions and anecdotes about 'What makes EURAMET special?'.

To reflect on how far the metrology community has come one of the sessions gave examples on 'What made EURAMET the organisation it is today?'. This session included a review of the time when EUROMET gave itself a new strategic orientation with a study entitled 'Planning the European Research Area in metrology' and an evaluation of how the EMRP changed the organisation. Another session highlighted the long history of capacity building and knowledge transfer within EUROMET and EURAMET as an important pillar of the association's development. All presentations can be found on the anniversary symposium page.

A vision for the future of the organisation and the European metrology community was given in a session on 'What are the actual and future challenges?'. It included an outlook by EURAMET's Chairperson, Beat Jeckelmann, on closer coordination in EURAMET and a talk about post-EMPIR research.

The symposium was rounded off with an open discussion on EURAMET's role in national, regional and international metrology, with many contributions from the audience, for example one contributor said that there should be more female metrologists involved in the top committees and bodies of the organisation.

The anniversary symposium took place alongside EURAMET's General Assembly in Madrid and Tres Cantos, Spain. The location for the symposium was very symbolic as it was at CEM, 30 years earlier, that a Memorandum of Understanding was signed founding EUROMET, EURAMET's predecessor.