19th International CODATA Conference
Category: Interoperability

The European Virtual Institute For Thermal Metrology

Dr. Joachim Fischer (joachim.fischer@ptb.de)
Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Germany
http://www.ptb.de

An EC supported project to develop a European Virtual Institute for Thermal Metrology (evitherm) was launched in January 2003 and is co-ordinated by the National Physical Laboratory (GB), Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (DE), Laboratoire National d'Essais (FR), CNR Istituto di Metrologia "G. Colonnetti" (IT) and the ARC Seibersdorf Research GmbH (AT).

A consortium of more than 30 European partners from 12 European nations has been formed, in order to ensure that thermal knowledge and services are made available to industry, for the benefit of industrial processes and the environment, offering low-cost easy access, particularly to small and medium-sized enterprises. As a co-ordinated internet-based infrastructure linking together the geographically scattered centres of excellence and other groups and organisations concerned with thermal measurements and technology, evitherm is designed to provide a focal point for information exchange and knowledge transfer between all these organisations and industry.

A key requirement for EC funding support is that a virtual institue should become a 'self-financing legal entity' (a viable business) to ensure that the services it provides can be sustained beyond the period of EC funding. So it is vital, and the key challenge for evitherm, that it is attractive to users from the outset and that they recognise it as offering a unique or high value service that could not otherwise be obtained so easily or economically.