News

Dedicated working group set up to support EURAMET’s capacity building strategy

2019 meeting of the Board of Directors working group for Capacity Building – group photo

Board of Directors working group carries out capacity building measures to support the development of a coherent metrology network across Europe

National Metrology Institutes (NMIs) and Designated Institutes (DIs) around Europe have varying levels of research and operational capacity. While longer-standing institutes have greater resources to develop highly-demanded measurement technologies, newer and emerging institutes are in earlier developmental stages, and so are still building their underpinning infrastructures. EURAMET’s Capacity Building Strategy aims to bridge this gap and assist with the development of newer NMIs and DIs, contributing to the creation of a balanced metrology landscape for Europe.

To facilitate the Capacity Building strategy, EURAMET has established a dedicated working group under the auspice of the Board of Directors. Presently, the convenor of the working group is Paul Hetherington (NSAI, Ireland), with Maria Luisa Rastello (EURAMET’s Vice-Chairperson) as the group’s guardian. Representatives from measurement institutes all across Europe are active members of the group, working together to propose capacity building measures, encourage NMI/DI participation in EURAMET activities, and promote the sharing of expertise between established and emerging institutes.

Tanasko Tasic, EURAMET’s Capacity Building Officer, comments on the working group’s current objectives:

“The group is working to build the human and institutional capacity of member NMI/DIs to respond to the demands of indirect stakeholders, for emerging and all other NMIs – to develop basic technical skills for new staff. The group is also supporting NMI/DIs towards more effective participation in CIPM MRA processes and mechanisms (such as conducting inter-comparisons). Generally, the working group is supporting the integration of all EURAMET members into its structure and activities, to monitor the effectiveness of existing capacity building instruments, and to introduce new tools accordingly.

Some items on the agenda of the group in the future include multi-annual planning of capacity building activities, and summer schools for additional technical fields. Experienced member institutes are very much committed to supporting these activities. As an example of their contribution to the EURAMET community, in 2018 alone, member NMI/DIs presented a total of 100 lecture days as an in-kind contribution.”

Encompassing these tasks, the over-arching focus of the working group is to support EURAMET’s member states – in particular small and emerging metrology institutes – to realise its vision for a sustainable and integrated European metrology landscape.

The Board of Directors working group has solidified EURAMET’s commitment to capacity building efforts. At present, EURAMET is utilising joint research projects within the European Metrology Programme for Innovation and Research (EMPIR) to support research potential development, training courses covering topics like legal metrology and NMI/DI management to advance staff technical skills, and researcher mobility grants to allow EURAMET member scientists to carry out project-related research on secondment at partner institutes.

EURAMET continually evaluates and adds to this list of ongoing capacity building measures, striving to meet society’s ever-growing measurement needs.

Want to hear more about EURAMET?