In today’s global economy, metrology makes a significant contribution to the technological and economic development of many nations in the world. Metrology research is needed to solve societal problems, and examples of such research affect areas such as space including satellite navigation, security, healthcare, the semiconductor industry and climate change. Metrology research has strong public benefits and is the main supporting activity for government regulation and standardisation. Metrology is hidden from public view yet it is essential for the facilitation of modern trade and communications. Access to markets can be hampered by the lack of uniform and accurate weights and measures. All major economic powers in the world have recognised that technology R & D in metrology is critical to an advanced nation’s long term economic growth.

The EMRP will integrate the national programmes of 22 participating States into a single joint research programme and support, in particular, the objectives of the European National Measurement Systems. The objectives of the EMRP are to accelerate the development, validation and exploitation of new measuring techniques, standards, processes, instruments, reference materials and knowledge aimed at driving innovative developments in industry and commerce, improving the quality of data for science, industry and policymaking and supporting the development and implementation of directives and regulations.
 

The EMRP shall consist of joint research and technological development activities of four types:

• The core activity shall consist of multi-partner trans-national EMRP projects addressing research, technological development, training and dissemination activities. In view of the concentrated capacities in metrology, the core part of the EMRP projects shall be executed by NMI and DI from participating States.
• In order to enlarge the number of organisations with capacities closely related to metrology, researcher excellence grants shall be made available to organisations and/or individuals from the wider researcher community in the Member States and countries associated to the Seventh Framework Programme which are capable of making a substantial contribution to the research activities of the joint programme. Each selected organisation and/or individual shall be associated to an EMRP project.
• In order to develop the capacities of individuals in metrology through mobility, researcher mobility grants shall be made available.
• In order to ensure sustainability in the cooperation between the NMI and DI of the participating States and to prepare the next generation of experienced metrology researchers, early-stage researcher mobility grants shall be made available to early-stage researchers from the NMI and DI of participating States to enable them to stay either in an NMI or DI, in an organisation benefiting from a research excellence grant or in another organisation participating in an EMRP research project at its own costs.

The Community provisional funding available for the programme is:

• 400,00 Million EUR (Global Budget)