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World Metrology Day 2022 – Metrology in the Digital Era

As this year’s World Metrology Day focuses on ‘Metrology in the Digital Era’, we at EURAMET are taking the opportunity to review the achievements, progress and future ambitions in the digital transformation of European metrology. With a committed community, including our members and associates, Technical Committees, European Metrology Networks and collaborative research projects within the Metrology Partnership and previous European Metrology Research Programmes, we are fostering Europe’s digital transformation and aim at playing a leading role in the digital transformation of measurement science and in metrology for data.

EURAMET’s Technical Committees

EURAMET’s Technical Committees (TCs) represent the backbone for the exchange of ideas and development of projects pertaining to the myriad of specific but also cross-sectoral needs of measurement science. One example is the TC for Interdisciplinary Metrology (TC-IM) - chaired by Miruna Dobre (SMD, Belgium) since 2018.

TC-IM has pioneered digital transformation initiatives through dedicated internal projects and the establishment of the working group on Metrology for Digital Transformation (M4D). These experts are pushing on to identify topics of interest, propose ways of cooperation and advance digital transformation solutions to the metrological challenges underpinning innovation for the European industry and society.

A number of further TCs have started investigating the potential for digital transformation within their specific areas of expertise: from the calibration of digital sensing systems to the curation of large data sets and contribution to relevant standardisation activities.

Competent in areas ranging from data quality and sensor networks to digital certificates and processes, the  M4D members support the implementation of the EURAMET 2030 Strategy on digital transformation that states: “digital solutions are not only needed for measurement equipment coming with a high level of data generation and processing, but also for the quality assessment of the data. The National Metrology Institutes (NMIs) and Designated Institutes (DIs) must adapt to these significant changes and can also contribute significantly”.

Within this framework, the M4D working group closely collaborates with all EURAMET TCs and the European Metrology Networks. A recent example is a series of workshops organised by M4D to foster the preparations for the 2022 digital call within the framework of the European Partnership on Metrology.

TC-IM projects with a focus on digital transformation

EURAMET’s efforts towards promoting digital calibration certificates (DCCs) is coordinated by the TC-IM project ‘Development of digital calibration certificates’, with the objective to oversee advancements and foster their convergence towards the establishment of a harmonised outcome. A current pursuit of the project is the collaborative initiative ‘DCC2GO’, a capacity building activity that started in April 2022. The aims of this initiative are to deliver a training compendium assembling the DCC general concept, benefits and requirements and provide a starter kit to enable NMIs and DIs to implement DCCs. ‘DCC2GO’ will benefit EURAMET’s stakeholders far beyond members of its consortium, by sharing the outcomes with the technical and scientific community.

The EURAMET Board of Directors has acknowledged the need to further support these efforts by appointing a DCC support to take the incipient developments to the next level. Since March 2022 Pedro Santos da Costa (BEV, Austria) is working towards the identification of potential technical solutions by initiating collaborations with other industries (e.g., medical engineering) that are experienced in data curation, having already successfully implemented digital documents and processes.

Digital transformation in metrology is furthermore about the management and interchange of research data. The TC-IM project ‘Research data management and the European Open Science Cloud’ supports the implementation of sound data management practices by the EURAMET research community. Its members are engaged in topics such as data management plans, research data policies and digital standards for metrological information. The project supports sustaining the impact of European measurement science projects within EMPIR and the Metrology Partnership and consequently strengthens EURAMET’s contribution to the delivery of the EU digital objectives.

Louise Wright (NPL, UK), the recently appointed M4D convenor, is the EURAMET representative to the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) Task Force on FAIR metrics and Data Quality.

“The communication between EURAMET and EOSC is about promoting traceability and uncertainty as metrics for Data Quality” explained Louise, “it is my aim to have these fundamental metrological concepts thought of and included in the deliverables of the task force”.