The CCRI News resource

The end of March 2023 marks the end of my term as a Member of CIPM and President of CCRI, as well as my retirement from NPL (the UK’s NMI).

It has been a privilege to be President of CCRI and to work with such an active and committed community of metrologists from across the globe; committed to metrology and committed to ensuring its benefits are realized in the enormous number of applications of Ionizing Radiation.

I am grateful to everyone who has supported me in my role and who has contributed to the work of CCRI; those who have participated in our main meetings, sections, WGs and TGs and the wider community actively involved in the comparisons, which are the foundation of the global consistency of IR measurements. My thanks to all of you who have been involved in the leadership of our WGs and TGs for the time you have given to our work and particularly to Malcolm, Lisa and Andreas in their vital and time consuming roles as Chairs of the three Sections.

The role of President would be impossible without the support an Executive Secretary and I have been very fortunate to have been supported by two excellent Secretaries Steven Judge and Vincent Gressier (who prior to this role was Chair of Section III). I want to thank them for their support and also for their leadership of the technical work at the BIPM, which is recognised by the IR community as vitally important and critical for confidence in IR metrology.

As I highlighted in my report at the CGPM in 2022 and in the CIPM meeting earlier in March 2023, there are a lot of important items on the CCRI agenda for the coming years. Activities already under way that need to continue are reflected in our WGs and TGs, in the work under way with CCQM to support the use of Mass Spectrometry in IR applications, and in our new communications group; maximizing the benefits of new communications technologies for collaboration and Knowledge Transfer. But there are also new challenges, including developments in areas such as nuclear power (new small modular fission reactors and a move to accelerate commercialization of fusion). The CCRI will also need to contribute to the wider Digital Agenda of CIPM; ensuring we understand how best to digitize what we do and how we respond to the increasing use of digital technology in applications of IR. I am grateful to Romain Coulon for chairing the new TG in this area. The next few years will also see the development by the CIPM of a new Vision for BIPM and the SI to mark the 150th Anniversary of the Metre Convention in 2025; something that all the CCs will need to contribute to.

With such a full, important and exciting agenda, I am delighted that J.-T. Janssen will be succeeding me as President of CCRI. I have worked with J.-T., who is Chief Metrologist at the NPL, for many years. I know his scientific and technical skills, his commitment to metrology and his commitment to ensuring its benefits are realized will be a major asset for the CCRI community. I wish him and all the CCRI community the best for the coming years.

Martyn Sené