Industry, trade and increasingly the quality of life depend on the ability to make leading edge measurements. However, within Europe the ability to deliver state-of-the-art measurement capability with the confidence necessary to underpin research, innovation and development, is dependent on the metrology infrastructure being able to meet ever-growing demands with resources that are not increasing at a comparable rate. A strategy has been developed within EUROMET to address these issues and this paper describes the MERA project, which will plan the implementation of the strategy.

The operation of the economy on a global scale and the quality of life for the individual citizen depends on reliable measurements and tests, which are trusted and accepted internationally. Although broadly harmonised, differences in measurement practice amongst regulators and associated bodies still exist even within the EU. This is because the approach by the regulatory community in Europe is still influenced by historical practice and awareness of measurement issues varies significantly. Equally, development of national measurement capability does not always take optimum account of the regulatory perspective. A partnership of nine European National Metrology Institutes, the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre and the European Organisation for Conformity Assessment, with partial support from the European Commission, are engaged in the RegMet project with the regulatory community to overcome this historical legacy. This paper describes the aims, findings and progress of the RegMet project, including the concept of the development of a measurement template for regulators.

Malawi is one of the developing countries in Africa, as such her economy is donor driven. Being a developing nation, there are a number of scientific institutions such as Universities, National Standards Body, Polytechnics, Medical Institutions, Government Agricultural Research Centres, Water Development, Research Institutes, Environmental Protection and Research Institutes, Industrial Research and Development Centres, Telecommunications Development and many more. These institutions house from simple to most complicated electronic equipment /instruments. Since 1964, when Malawi became independent, there has been a great acquisition of such instruments.
Over the years, instruments inventory surveys showed that Malawi had received a large variety of measuring instruments. However, notable was the fact that there was no local capabilities developed to repair and service such equipment. 1980's most of the institutes had most of their useful instruments broken down. In order to solve the problem first repair and maintenance contracts were concluded with the manufacturers, then Malawi technicians were trained to provide the necessary services. Neither of the methods could operate successfully and the national instrument inventory showed that about 50% of the available instruments in various institutions were nonfunctional, such that most of vital functions could not be undertaken locally. Hence there is need for the establishment of local capability which can provide the needed services on the site.

The scientific equipment pool in the Moroccan universities has suffered from the lack of maintenance policy. This is why the LIS has built an appropriate strategy of maintenance, constructed on 3 main pillars: i) The knowledge of the current state of the existing equipment and human resources. So, according to the inventory, launched by LIS since 1998, in average, 19% of the scientific equipment is out of use. This percentage is higher than 50% for complex instruments. Only less than 1% of the equipment have maintenance contract, 4% have technical manuals and 14% with maintenance manuals, etc. ii) The consolidation of the capabilities in maintenance is based on 3 types of training. Accordingly, since mid 1999, more than 100 technicians were trained on maintenance methods, electronic integrated circuits, maintenance and repair of NMR spectrometer, repair and work of laboratory glassware. Surface Mount Technology (STM) repair is also concerned. iii) The creation of a national network of maintenance cells is scheduled to start in 2003, in cooperation with the France Embassy in Rabat. This network will be created, organised and supervised, by LIS, the national unit of maintenance.