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EURAMET would like to congratulate Maguelonne Chambon (LNE, France) in her new role, following Erkki Ikonen as Vice-Chairperson (EMPIR)

Maguelonne is Director Research & Development at LNE, the National Metrology Institute of France, and in charge of the French metrology network. As technical expert at LNE with almost 20 years of experience, she has been involved in European technical cooperation such as training courses for the development of metrology infrastructure in emerging countries or analysis of metrological needs of industries and societies. Maguelonne is member of numerous professional bodies, including the French Accreditation Body, the Technical Board of the International Measurement Confederation (IMEKO), scientific committee of the 'International Metrology Congress', organised by the Collège Français de Métrologie.

Maguelonne has been part of the EURAMET community for over a decade and plays an active role in the organisation. Currently she is a member of the Board of Directors and member of the EMPIR Committee. She chaired the STAIR-EMPIR group for 7 years, which is common platform of CEN-CENELEC and EURAMET. With her wealth of experience, Maguelonne plans to tackle a range of different topics during her time as Vice-Chairperson (EMPIR), including fully implementing the new European Partnership on Metrology working with members on stakeholder needs with a focus on regulation, and finalising the European Metrology Programme for Innovation and Research.

EURAMET spoke to Maguelonne about her new role.

Maguelonne, congratulations on your election. What is – in your view – most special about the Metrology Partnership and collaborative metrology research in general?
The Decision is published, which is a great step to have achieved. Now, we can continue working on other big issues like the Grant Agreement with the European Commission, the integration of associate countries, and the implementation of the steering committee. It’s a great chance for the metrology community to start this Partnership with new stakeholders, collaborate with more external laboratories, contribute to the European Union’s Green Deal, and aim for the digital transformation of metrology. There are exciting challenges ahead!

What do you see as some of the important elements of the Metrology Partnership?
It should permit faster research and development, helping to bring Europe to the highest level of competitiveness. With EMRP and EMPIR, the previous European Metrology Research Programmes, metrology showed how they can work together to answer societal and industrial needs. We can now go further with integrated metrology, to provide solutions to solve technological barriers and enable countries to strengthen their metrology offering.

What are the opportunities and challenges you want to tackle during your term?
The redefinition of the second, the unit of the International System of Units (SI), will be another adventure for metrology! Alongside this, climate change monitoring and biodiversity will certainly cover major challenges of the years ahead with green energies. The world continues to change…very fast. Metrology has to anticipate those changes. But Technical Committees and European Metrology Networks (EMNs) already have ideas on what can be done.

What are you most excited about regarding your new role?
There are certainly some difficult but exciting challenges ahead, from signing the grant agreement with the Commission for the Metrology Partnership to further developing the EMNs. We also need to ensure transparency and regularly update the Partnership Committee on all actions and propositions. The Partnership chair is not alone, and all members should get the chance to express their views. I’d like to express my sincerest thanks to Erkki Ikonen, who has chaired the EMPIR Committee for 6 years. I hope that I’ll manage the committee as successfully, particularly in the face of challenges brought by the pandemic.

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