The 4th annual meeting of the EURAMET Board of Directors Working Group on CB Capacity Building was held in Skopje, North Macedonia.

The Meeting was held between October 28 and 29 2019, and was organized by the Bureau of Metrology (BoM), which represents the National Metrology Institute of Northern Macedonia. On the first day, a closed session of the Steering Committee was held. The Meeting of the Working Group covered various topics related to the evaluation of activities agreed and implemented in the current year in accordance with the 2019 Action Plan. The agreed and realized activities related to RMG, EMPIR RPoT, EURAMET trainings, etc. were presented. The member institutes were obliged to submit a report on the most significant activities, and that were orally presented at the Meeting. The Institute for Metrology of BiH is an active member of this Working Group and a user of all capacity development instruments within the BoD WG-CB. The Institute has made significant contributions with respect to RMG - Research Mobility Grants, where 7 RMGs were realized for the young newcomers of the Institute, in 2019.

At the Meeting, a new Convenor of the Hetherington Paul Working Group from the NSAI, Ireland, was selected, while Enver Sadikoglu from UME, Turkey, was elected as a member of the Steering Committee. The most significant part of the Meeting is the presentation of new capacity development instruments (CBs) that will be part of the new EURAMET research program, funded by HORIZON Europe for the period (2022-2030), which will replace the EMPIR Research Program (European Metrology Program for Innovation and Research 2014-2021). The total funding expected from the European Union for this program is € 700M.

New capacity development instruments were presented by Duncan Jarvis, EURAMET Secretary General, Tanasko Tasic, Capacity Building Officer, and Fiona Redgrave, MSU Project Officer. The instruments proposed and to be voted on at the next EMPIR Committee Meeting are:

1.       Small Collaborative Projects; - new instrument,

2.       Mentoring/Secondment; - new instrument,

3.       Normative Projects;

4.       Add On Projects – a new instrument, instead of RPoT;

5.       RMG

For all new proposed instruments, Guidance documents should be created detailing how these instruments are used.

The 2020 call for the EMPIR project will implement the Small Collaborative Project, which is to be funded through the EMPIR National Commitment and proposed as a pilot project and serves as a preparation for smaller NMIs to join the EMN - European Metrology Networks.

The Add on Projects proposal was proposed as a replacement for Research Potential Topics (RPoT) for a new research program. Discussion on proposed CB instruments was conducted and the deadline for submission of proposals and suggestions was given by November 13, 2019.