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More than 23 million people globally are exposed to ionising radiation in the workplace. As fields utilising such as medicine, manufacturing and nuclear energy grow, and changes in living conditions increase contact with sources of environmental radiation, it is necessary to optimise processes and develop monitoring capabilities to ensure unnecessary exposure is avoided for both workers and the public.

The European Metrology Network (EMN) for Radiation Protection has been established to tackle the metrological problems facing the field of radiation protection. It aims to provide a harmonised metrological infrastructure which is sustainable and smartly specialised to cover needs raised by stakeholders and by European regulations. This includes facilitating coordination and cooperation between European metrology institutes and other research bodies, as well as acting as a single point of contact for the field.

EMN Radiation Protection was approved by decision of the 15th General Assembly of EURAMET in June 2021 and began its work in September of the same year. The network has 16 members, including National Metrology Institutes (NMIs) and Designated Institutes (DIs), as well as founding partners EURADOS (the European Radiation Dosimetry Group) and BfS (the Federal Office for Radiation Protection in Germany).

EMN Highlights

EMN elections
The EMN voted in their first chairpersons: Chair, Annette Röttger (PTB, Germany), Vice-Chair, Teemu Siiskonen (STUK, Finland) and Secretary, Behnam Khanbabaee (PTB, Germany) will all serve in their roles until 2025.

Steering committee formed
A steering committee has been formed to guide the development of the EMN. The committee’s first two meetings were held in February of 2022 and 2023 and included discussion around the development of the Strategic Agenda (SA) and Strategic Research Agenda (SRA). The SA is a key document outlining the EMN’s aim, vision and mission, while the SRA outlines the metrology research needs around the support of Radiation Protection regulation.

New partners
The EMN welcomed two new partners, the Central Laboratory for Radiation Protection (Poland) and Eckert & Ziegler Nuclitec GmbH (Germany).
The network welcomes applications for new members and partners at any time. Interested organisations are welcome to contact the EMN Radiation Protection directly.

Publications and conferences
Several publications related to EMN Radiation Protection have been developed with support from the '19NET03 supportBSS' project:

• Metrology for radiation protection: A new European network in the foundation phase, Advances in Geosciences
• Support for a European Metrology Network on reliable radiation protection: Gaps in radiation protection metrology and related metrology, 9th International Conference on Radiation in Various Fields of Research
• Support for a European Metrology Network on reliable radiation protection: Gaps in radiation protection metrology and related metrology, RAD Conference Proceedings
• Development of a European Metrology Network for Reliable Radiation Protection: Pulsed High Energy Photon Reference Field as a Metrological Gap in Radiation Protection, Physica Medica

The European Metrology Network for Radiation Protection is supported by the Joint Network Project ‘Support for a European Metrology network on reliable radiation protection regulation’ (19NET03).

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