The official closing ceremony of the European Metrology Programme for Innovation and Research (EMPIR) took place on 7 May 2026 in Brussels, in the presence of Maria Cristina Russo, Deputy Director-General of the European Commission's Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, and Christophe Salomon of the French Academy of Sciences. The French National Metrology Network (RNMF) was represented alongside delegates from the national metrology institutes that are members of EURAMET, representatives of the European Commission, and the programme's academic and industrial partners.
A programme of unprecedented scale for European metrology
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Launched in 2014 under the Horizon 2020 framework, EMPIR mobilised a total budget of €600 million through seven annual calls for proposals. Half of this amount (€300 million) was provided by the European Commission, complemented by co-funding from participating Member States. By the end of the programme, 240 research projects had been completed, involving 1,500 companies and 450 universities and research organisations across Europe. These activities resulted in 2,000 peer-reviewed publications and 4,000 contributions to standardisation committees, illustrating the programme's deliberate integration of fundamental research and standards development.
French laboratories belonging to the French National Metrology Network (RNMF) participated in 114 of these 240 projects, placing France among the programme's most active contributors.
The RNMF at the heart of the governance of the successor programme
The transition to the European Partnership on Metrology (EPM), the successor to EMPIR within the Horizon Europe framework, is already underway. Maguelonne Chambon, Director of Scientific and Technological Research at LNE, signed the programme implementation agreement on behalf of the French metrology community and chairs the partnership's Steering Committee. With a budget of €740 million, including a French contribution of €58 million, EPM aims to build on EMPIR's achievements while steering metrological research towards major global challenges, including the climate and digital transitions and public health.
