Competitive and sustainable growth

4 Contribution to Programme/Key Action Priorities

This proposal responds directly to the dedicated call for proposals to set up a European Virtual Institute for Thermal Metrology (GROWTH – DEDICATED CALL – GROW/DC5MTI, TOPIC V.35). It is focused on dissemination and exploitation of the temperature and thermophysical properties research, best practice and technical expertise developed by NMIs, universities and other centres of excellence in this field for the benefit of European industrial processes and products. It will also connect the users and providers of contract research and consultancy and act as a partner-finding medium for the exploitation of intellectual property and development in this field. EVITherM will become an independent, self-funding legal entity within three years.

EVITherM will support the three aims of the work programme for support for Research Infrastructures by making available, through one Internet portal, an integrated connection with the diverse facilities and expertise of the geographically scattered NMIs, universities and other centres of excellence in this field. It will also function as a two-way communication mechanism allowing users and manufacturers access to new research outputs, and will give research bodies (primarily NMIs, universities and governments) visibility of the future thermal metrology needs of European industries. The publishing of common best practice guides and approaches to standardisation will encourage improved acceptance and common protocols.
The objectives of this project are directly consistent with the priority GROW-2001-7.2 "Setting up of Virtual Institutes" in the activity "Support to Research Infrastructure" within the GROWTH programme. Its outputs will have wide application and benefit to industrial areas and applications such as aerospace and automotive, energy generation, advanced materials development, construction, environmental protection, and engineering and combustion. As a result EVITherM will provide generic support on thermal metrology to most areas covered by the Growth Programme including GROW-2001-1 Key Action 1: Innovative Products, Processes and Organisations; GROW-2001-3 Key Action 3: Land Transport and Marine Technologies; GROW-2001-4 Key Action 4: New Perspectives in Aeronautics; GROW-2001-5 Generic Activity 1: Materials and their Technologies for Production and Transformation and New and Improved Materials and Production Technologies in the Steel Field; and GROW-2001-6 Generic Activity 2: Measurement and Testing.

5 Community Added Value and Contribution to EU Policies

The measurement and control of temperature and thermophysical properties of materials (thermal metrology) is an important factor in many industrial/commercial processes and applications. The accuracy and quality of these measurements has a significant impact on a wide range of issues affecting society. These include environmental issues related to the efficiency of domestic and industrial combustion processes, health and safety issues related to refrigerated food storage, shipment and consumption, production efficiency issues in industries that are heavy energy users such as glass and steel making, and product quality, performance and therefore competitiveness issues of leading-edge scientific industries such as aerospace and information technology.

It is important that all organisations that make use of thermal metrology have access to appropriate and up-to-date metrology information and expertise, best practice advice and qualified reference data. However, this information and the supporting skills base are currently only available in Europe from a small number of geographically scattered institutes, research/industrial organisations and knowledge transfer and industry awareness groups, and is not readily accessible to all who could benefit from it. Where it is available it tends to be organised at a national or regional level with a resulting patchy take-up of metrology expertise across Europe. This is especially true for SMEs who may not even be aware of the national support available to them.
EVITherM will address these issues by collaborating with existing European centres of excellence, both industrial and academic, to develop a co-ordinated infrastructure and dissemination mechanisms, primarily using the Internet as the communication medium. That will make this important information and skills resource more readily available and easily accessible to all European organisations that require accurate measurement and control of temperature and thermophysical properties of materials. EVITherM will also work closely with existing European standards and regulatory bodies and associated accreditation organisations to complement their activities and to help identify European-wide metrology issues that need their attention and support.
The participants in this proposal have been selected to ensure that the Virtual Institute will be able to achieve these objectives and to establish itself as a self-financing legal entity by the end of the EC funding phase. To do this the project has been subdivided into a number of well-defined work packages each having work package leaders and supporting members – all selected because of their complementary and relevant skills and expertise for the work in hand.
A significant part of the project is to collect, compile and qualify information related to specific technical areas within the global ‘thermal metrology field. This information is harnessed by participants from European centres of metrology expertise such as NMIs and universities. This is appropriate since they have the technical expertise, experience and authority that is respected by industry and they generally underpin the quality of measurement activities in most European countries via their national measurement systems. They are also acknowledged and much valued by industry for providing impartial and unbiased technical advice. The linking together of these organisations, in particular NMIs, by this project also delivers the additional benefit of cementing closer relationships between them, thereby opening up possibilities for more efficient pan-European collaborations in future.
However, the consortium is fully aware that the material provided by these centres of excellence is of little value unless it is appropriate to the real practical needs of European industry, and at the same time is easily accessible. The project plan has therefore been constructed with a key theme running through it – namely, to identify industry requirements and to provide mechanisms to ensure that the technical information provided by EVITherM and the methods of access to it are appropriate to the needs of users. With this in mind a specific work package has been set up to ensure that the needs of industry are addressed and to provide the most widely needed information in appropriate national languages (WP3). This work package will be led by two principal contractors, representing the Germanic and Latin European languages, and supported by members with direct experience of industry and how to serve it.
The map below illustrates the location of the institutes represented by the participants of EVITherM. There is a good geographic spread and this, together with the regional coverage ensured by the activities of WP3, should help to ensure good communication between the VI and its users or potential users.