Evaluation of Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica 2010

Transcription

1 Evaluation of Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica 2010 Prepared by Kim Carneiro, COSTA CONSULT Enrico Canuto, Dipartimento Automatica e Informatica, Politecnico di Torino Marco dell Isola, Università di Cassino Settimio Mobilio, Università di Roma TRE Giuseppina Rinaudo, Università di Torino Alberto Dal Poz, Co-mec 27 February 2012 Kim Carneiro Tel kim@carneiro.biz

2 Content 1 Executive summary Introduction, Method of work Scientific work National Measurement Standards Dissemination of Knowledge Economy and Resources Annexes Page 2 of 80

3 1 Executive summary This report of the Scientific Evaluation Committee of INRIM for the year 2010 is the fifth report since 2006, following the legislation for the new institution IN- RIM from INRIM is a merger of the former two metrology institutes of Italy, IEN and IMGC. In practice, INRIM started activities in 2006 on a somewhat preliminary basis, and 2007 was the first year of normal operation. Since 2008, the operation has been stable, and it was therefore timely to summarize the status and development in connection with the 2009 report. In this year s report we have not repeated the summary, but mention the specific changes that have taken place with respect to the 2009 report. The findings of the Scientific Evaluation Committee for 2010 may be summarised as follows: Scientific performance: Regarding the scientific activity for 2010, the Committee findings are summarized as follows: The global and the scientific production at international level of 2010 are smaller compared with that of the previous years; the reason for this decrease is not clear. The presence of INRIM at International level is judged adequate at Department and at Division levels The quality of the scientific production in average and of each divisions is higher than that of the previous years, showing how the Institute is pursuing a better quality of the research. The 2010 scientific production of the Optics division results to be excellent; that of the other divisions shall be ameliorated. The presented 2010 Highlights are not only exceptional products, but give a good picture of the best products of R&D and NMI activities. Their analysis in the next year will be very helpful in monitoring the scientific activities. The relevant presence and involvement of INRIM in the European Metrology Research Programs is very significant, both in the imera plus projects started in 2008 and in the JRP ones approved in November 2009; this demonstrates the quite good expertise of the INRIM scientists in key metrological aspects at European level. The start of the NANOFAB and METREGEN projects improved significantly the research and metrological infrastructure of the Institute. The participation in the national PRIN projects of the Education and Research Ministry is appreciable but their number is rather low. The approved projects of the 2008 internal calls, New Ideas and Relevant Investment, are producing good results; this demonstrates that the calls are really an efficient way to promote the metrological research. Most of the scientific production is linked to the INRIM mission and concerns the development of instrumentation and/or methods, which are important to metrology or may result important for future metrology. However, the overall quantity of projects, particularly the national and regional ones, continues to be excessive with respect to the resources available in the Institute: priorities or selection criteria should be formulated to avoid interference with the INRIM main activities. As in previous years, a non-negligible fraction of products and activities still appears to have a less clear link to the mission of the Institute: the presence of Page 3 of 80

4 such a fraction of free research is vital for a research Institute for many reasons, such as to maintain an open channel to new ideas and to curiosity driven enquiries, to keep alive historical research fields which have been successful to attract funds through contracts on themes indirectly related to metrological research. The point is that the indicators provided in the annual report are not sufficient in order to evaluate their compatibility with the Institute s main activity and the management should accurately monitor this aspect. National Measurement Standards: When in 2006 Italy decided to unite the two existing NMIs IMGC and IEN, the task was to merge two brothers with a latent love-hate relation like in many noble families. The two institutes had vastly different company cultures and they were in constant competition on the international scene; naturally often the competition was friendly. Five years later, in 2010, the resulting institute INRIM has emerged as a cohesive entity. And with the recent change in organisation and senior management, the organisation appears clearer, and well set for meeting the challenges of the future. During the recent years, the standards work at INRIM appears very stable. This means that the scientific development, both in INRIM s established areas or work as well as in new fields, have not manifested itself in new metrology services, as monitored by the CMC-entries of the KCDB. It also means that there seem to be no cleaning up process whereby INRIM can discontinue services that are no longer in sufficient demand or maybe can be delivered better by a foreign NMI. There seem to be a lack of understanding at INRIM that the national measurement standards, both the maintenance and upgrading of the physical standards as well as the associated committee work as a drain on resources that has to be prioritised against new developments of standards, or even against scientific work or other ways of disseminating metrology knowledge. As an example, the number of CMCs for each key- or supplementary comparison has dropped from 2.7 to below 2, putting Italy as the one of the least efficient country in the benchmarking shown in Figure 6 shows the average number of CMCs that is supported by one comparison.. In order for INRIM to develop as a leading metrology institute both in Italy and worldwide it is recommended that: INRIM develops a plan and implement processes that put more dynamics into its provision of metrology services than has recently been the case. In short it means to the possible establishment of a national measurement standard is built in the scientific plan from the beginning. It also means there are plans for how to stop or devolve services that no longer warrant the resources that their maintenance require. Finally, a similar dynamical attitude should be applied to the associated committee work. INRIM further improves the enumeration of its resources so that it can be consistent support for the management of the INRIMs development. IINRIM improves its strategic work to include a long term strategy, a strategic action plan, as well as processes to implement and monitor its actions. This item is further exploited in Annex 7.3 Page 4 of 80

5 Knowledge dissemination: The knowledge dissemination represents an important task at INRIM. In the opinion of the Committee INRIM has not reached its full potential regarding the dissemination of know-how towards the companies, even though the activities of knowledge diffusion are fully developed. In fact INRIM has a large number of activities belonging to dissemination of knowledge towards community and academy (such as the participation in the standardization, scientific and technical committees, the high education and training, the organization of national and international seminars and congress, the support to health, environmental and legal metrology). As regards some primary activities which directly promote innovation (such as patents and spin off companies) they do not appear as systematic as one could wish. On the contrary, activities related to the calibration service and to the laboratory accreditation assistance are very well conducted. In this topic the Committee has analyzed and benchmarked the numerous dissemination activities in detail and has suggested that INRIM develops a strategy for the subject, and that it seeks outside help with the competences, necessary for success, that it does not possess. The activities of knowledge diffusion to community and academy can be considered excellent for both quality and quantity. The visibility and proposal capability at international level of INRIM Institute in National and International activities testifies its interaction ability in several metrological sectors. As regards the knowledge dissemination to the companies, the critical aspects underlined in the previous evaluation reports are confirmed in The Committee lists five specific challenges for INRIM s knowledge dissemination. Economic analysis As the Institute has reached its fourth year of normal operation, the economic analysis aims to correlate the quadrennial trend from 2007 to 2010 with the continuous Evaluation Committee indications and with the benchmarks offered by European and extra European Metrology Institutes. Key economic indices are investments, self-funding (projects, contracts and commercial income), fund to support scholarships and fellowships, as the latter is a leverage for compensating for a frozen staff, and finally the income per staff, as an indication of the capability of transferring knowledge and technology. Whilst the past triennial witnessed a steady growth, the 2010 results show a significant halt if not a decline, which is hoped to be contingent and strictly related to economic crisis and to the constraints imposed by the regulatory body. To make the 2010 picture less dark, some positive facts occurred, like the exploit of the Europe-wide competitive research funding (+150% with respect to triennial). Unfortunately key items like fellowships, total self-funding and investments, all of them, showed a decline. Particularly, investments that were raised in 2009 to the acceptable (for the European standard) figure of 20% fell down to about 10 %, a value that cannot aid a Metrology Institute to stay competitive, enter new fields like health and legal metrology, support dissemination through patents and spin-offs, in the end become a world wide reference (the South-Korean percentage of investment is greater than the income 50%, INRIM is rarely mentioned as a reference in the introductory pages of the world-wide metrology institutes). The Committee is aware of the hard constraints impeding INRIM to put in action all of its potentialities, which suggests as mentioned above a careful activity plan. But modern metrology being pervasive of society and life should indicate the road map of INRIM management for breaking the straitjacket impeding Italian (metrological) research and technology to burst. Page 5 of 80

6 2 Introduction, Method of work. The Evaluation Committee (Comitato di Valutazione, Committee ), established by the legislative Decree n. 38/2004, Art 10, has performed its fifth evaluation of the Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica, INRIM, for the year A number of changes, both of formal and practical nature, have had an effect on the performance of INRIM in Importantly, new statutes for INRIM were issued in December 2009, and gradually implemented during 2010 and The changes were introduced simultaneously with personal changes in the positions of the president, the general director and the scientific director (now Department Coordinator). Another important change for the future work of the Evaluation Committee is the introduction of an annual external evaluation of IMRIM, since it is belonging to the family of institute operating with reference to the Ministry of Education, Universities and Research. Finally, INRIM has, for the first time prepared a long term strategic plan. As none of the above mentioned changed were not fully implemented, the Evaluation Committee has not made any major changes in the report structure. However, a separate description is devoted to the major achievements during the first five-year of INRIM s existence, together with some suggestions for future strategic directions. This is given in Appendix 7.3. As all previous evaluation reports are now available on the home page on INRIM ( the exevutive summaries of these are no longer included as appendices. Finally, previous years thematic report on benchmarking has been abandoned, instead, benchmarking is made a integral part of the evaluation. This report is based on the documents Relazione consuntiva 2010 and Risultati e Dati 2010, as well an on-site visit during 5-7 December Here oral presentations from the four divisions of INRIM as well as a visit to the laboratories of the Thermodynamic Division were given. The evaluation report for 2009, as well as the progress during 2010 was discussed with senior officials of the institute (The President, the General Director, Department Coordinator, and four Division Responsibles). The reporting for 2010 by the institute and is now fully aligned with the needs of the Evaluation Committee, and in particular there are no longer significant problems in performing the economic analysis. The report evaluates INRIM s activities according to the three different facets of modern national metrology: Scientific work, Chapter 3 National Measurement Standards, 4 Dissemination of knowledge, Chapter 5. INRIM s economic management is evaluated under the heading: Economy and Resources, Chapter 6 Further, the report contains the following appendices in Chapter 7: Material submitted to the Evaluation committee List of acronyms Proposal for an approach to strategic management Summary of developments at ENEA-INMRI Page 6 of 80

7 In accordance with five-year approach to this year s evaluation report, when possible Chapters 3 to 6 include trends analyses for the period Like previously, the evaluation focuses on the activities of INRIM s Department and its four divisions: Electromagnetism, Mechanics, Optics, and Thermodynamics. The Administration, which was addressed in the 2006 report is given no special analysis, since the provision of data and other support now is very supportive for the work of the Evaluation Committee. In order to get a complete picture of the whole Italian metrology organisation the evaluation report contains a summary of the developments at the Italian Designated Institute for Ionising Radiation ENEA-INMRI. The summary is given in Appendix 7.4. The evaluation committee would like to express its gratitude for the openness exhibited by all staff of INRIM and particularly to the senior staff for frank discussions. Also the director of ENEA-INRIM is thanked for his contribution. Page 7 of 80

8 3 Scientific work. The scientific performance of INRIM shows, from a general and qualitative point of view, similar aspects to that of the previous year. In the present report we have evaluated not only the research products, which are documented essentially by the publications, but also the overall research activity, in terms of projects and realizations of scientific relevance. 3.1 Research Products Table 1 reports the key numbers of the scientific research products for the Department and for the four Divisions; Table 2 shows the INRIM human resources dedicated to R&D and research contracts activities. Product E M O T Depart. TOT Books 1 1 Paper on ISI Journal Other papers and chapters in Books Papers in Conference Proceedings Technical Reports Communications at International Conferences Communications at National Conferences Total Table 1 Breakdown of scientific production in 2010 Division E M O T Department Total R&S INRIM 35,66 11,40 12,78 20,45 80,29 R&S Contract 15,45 13,15 15,15 15,55 59,30 Total 51,11 24,55 27,93 36,00 139,59 Table 2 Equivalent Human Resources On the basis of these key numbers, as already done in the previous evaluation reports, we calculated the following indicators to evaluate the scientific activity of the Department as a whole and of the single divisions. Indicator a 1 Numerousness of the global production, defined as the number of products per FTE; Indicator a 2 Numerousness of the scientific production, defined as the number of publication in journals, conference proceedings or books with or without IF per FTE, i.e. the Technical reports as well as the Communications at conferences are not considered. Indicator b 1 Mean quality of the scientific production defined as the mean value of the IF; Indicator b 2 Numerousness of the scientific production at International level defined as the number of publications in international journals with IF per FTE; Page 8 of 80

9 Indicator c Presence at international level defined as the number of papers on Conference Proceedings and communications at international conferences, seminars and meetings per FTE. To avoid considering twice a presence at International level, only the higher between the number of Papers in Conference Proceedings and the number of Communication at International Conferences was considered. Table 3 Indicators of the scientific activity referred to the total FTE Human resources Indicator/Division E M O T Mean Value a 1 : Numerousness of the global production 3,0 4,3 4,3 3,4 3,6 a 2 : Numerousness of the scientific production 1,2 1,4 1,3 1,7 1,4 b 1 : Mean quality of the scientific production 1,8 2,0 4,3 1,7 2,5 b 2 : Numerousness of the scientific production at International level 0,8 0,4 0,6 0,8 0,7 c: Presence at international level 1,4 1,5 1,6 1,1 1,4 On the basis of Table 4, we underline some aspects that we consider particularly relevant for the INRIM evaluation, also comparing them with the values of the previous years. Indicators a 1 and a 2 : Numerousness of the global and of the scientific production : Table 4: Evolution of the "Numerousness of the global and of the scientific production Indicator a1 Numerousness of the global production Division/Year E 3,5 3,5 4 3,0 M 4,5 5,3 6 4,3 O 6,9 4,4 4,6 4,3 T 4,1 4,3 3,5 3,4 Mean Value 4,8 4,4 4,5 3,6 Indicator a2 Numerousness of the scientific production Division/Year E 2,0 2,0 2,2 1,2 M 2,3 1,7 2,9 1,4 O 3,1 2,0 2,3 1,3 T 2,4 2,9 2,4 1,7 Mean Value 2,5 2,2 2,5 1,4 The mean values of the Global and of the Scientific products/year/adept (indicators a 1 and a 2 ) are rather smaller for 2010 compared with those of the previous years; the decrease is significant and need an explanation and or to be understood. Page 9 of 80

10 Quality of the scientific production Table 5: Quality of the scientific production Division/Year Mean Value E 1,4 1,4 1,6 1,8 1,55 M 1,3 1,8 1,6 2,0 1,68 O 1,8 3,3 1,9 4,3 2,83 T 1,5 1,7 1,5 1,7 1,60 Mean Value 1,5 2,1 1,7 2,5 1,91 The Committee appreciates that the quality of the scientific production in average and of each divisions is higher than that of the previous years; this is true particularly for the Optics division, whose 2010 scientific production results to be excellent. As already noted in the previous reports many metrology journals of standard quality have IF around or slightly larger than 1.5; for 2010 all the divisions are above this quality level; this indicates a quality of the research activity of standard level for an Institute mainly dedicated to NMI. However, INRIM should be a research metrological institute, performing also R&D research. Assuming the IF of Metrologia (IF=1.688) as an indicator of a good NMI research work and that of Physical Review B ( IF=3.774 ) as an indicator of good R&D research, the quality of the overall scientific activity should be at least between these two values. The Committee underline that for the evaluated years such a performance was achieved only by the Optics division; all other Division have an average quality of the scientific production lower than this satisfactory level, that was achieved permanently by Optic division, only once by Electromagnetic division and twice by Mechanics and Thermodynamics. This clearly shows that the scientific quality of the research performed by these three division has to be ameliorated; the Committee recommend the management to consider actions towards this direction. Numerousness of the scientific production at International level: Table 6: Numerousness of the scientific production at International level Division/Year E 1,2 1,2 1,3 0,8 M 0,6 0,56 1,3 0,4 O 1,3 0,86 1,1 0,6 T 0,8 0,89 0,59 0,8 Mean Value 1,0 0,9 1,1 0,7 In agreement with the indicators referring to the global production, also the numerousness of the scientific production at the international level is lower for all the division than those of the previous years; only the Thermodynamics division shows an increase in the production, reaching the level of 2007 and 2008; this demonstrate that the poor performance of 2009 was due only to a fluctuation. Page 10 of 80

11 Presence at international level Table 7 Presence at international level 1 Division/Year E 1,1 1,1 1,1 1,4 M 1,4 1,9 1,5 1,5 O 2,4 1,7 1,2 1,6 T 1,5 1,1 1,3 1,1 Mean Value 1,5 1,4 1,2 1,4 The indicator c is extremely important for an Institute that, for its main mission, must take part in significant international activities. This figure, in average has slightly increased with respect to 2009 and is at the same level of the previous years. At Division level there is a decrease only for Thermodynamics. In complex it is judged adequate at Department and at Division level. As last year, the Committee strongly recommend that the presence at International Conferences, meetings and Organisms will be maintained also for the next years at these levels, even if the actual financial difficulties will be confirmed R&D Highlights 2010 R&D and NMI Highlights Table 8 reports some data on the Highlights presented for 2010; the Committee first appreciate that the number of them is significant with respect to the scientific production being for all the divisions higher than 10%: the presented Highlights are not only exceptional products but are a good picture of the best products based on the today activities. Second their mean IF is significantly higher than that of the overall products and their CI compares well with the mean IF, that is an indication of the interest of the paper for the relevant scientific communities, in spite of the short time elapsed from publication. The Committee underlines and appreciate the excellent Highlights of the Optic division. Highlights E M O T INRIM Number Mean IF of Highlights 2,55 2,28 9,32 2,29 3,58 Mean IF of 2010 products 1,8 2,0 4,3 1,7 2,4 CI of Highlights 1,00 2,88 8,25 3,00 3,35 Table 8 Statistical analysis of the 2010 Highlights Highlights E M O T INRIM Mean IF of R&D Highlights 2,76 2,48 11,86 3,00 4,52 CI of R&D Highlights 1,67 3,50 9,67 2,33 4,13 Mean IF of NMI Highlights 2,34 1,69 1,69 1,22 1,82 CI of NMI Highlights 0,33 1,00 4,00 4,00 1,88 Table 9 Statistical data of 2010 Highlights divided by R&D and NMI 1 The values of indicator c of the report of 2007 and 2008 have been recalculated using the same criteria used for 2009 and Page 11 of 80

12 At INRIM level the quality of 2010 Highlights are satisfactory both for R&D and NMI: the corresponding mean IF are significantly higher than the reference values (i.e. IF of Physical Review B and of Metrologia respectively). At division level, the quality of the R&D Highlights is satisfactory only for Optic division, that really do an excellent research activity; it is unsatisfactory for the other divisions; the quality of the NMI Highlights at INRIM level is very good, the same holds at division level apart Thermodynamic. CI indexes are reported but not analysed for the short time elapsed from the publication. Evolution of the 2009 R&D Highlights In Table 10 we report for the highlight presented in 2009 the CI index at the end of 2010 together with that of the previous report Table 10 Statistical analysis of the 2009 R&D Highlights Highlights E M O T INRIM Number Mean IF 3,42 3,88 7,18 1,88 3,85 Mean CI previous report 0 0,50 3, Mean CI actual report 0,50 0,50 6, Mean 2009 CI 1,26 1,14 2,45 1,44 1,51 The Committee notes that the CI of the Optics division is considerably higher than the high IF of the highlights: this is considered as an indication of highlights that have been paid attention from the scientific community. As for the other division the CI of the highlights are considerably smaller than the IF; this aspects may be due to the still rather short time elapsed from the publications time (a little more than one year), but if confirmed next year shall be carefully considered by the Institute. In addition the CI of the Highlights is smaller than the mean CI of 2009 products; this indicates that in the 2009 production there were results and research papers judged by the scientific community of better quality and higher interest than the highlights chosen by the Divisions: it is important to understand the reason behind this and why such products are not considered by INRIM at least a the same level as the proposed highlights. Evolution of the 2008 R&D Highlights Table 11 reports the upgraded mean values of the citation indices together with the mean Impact Factors for the 2008 R&D highlights and their CI normalized to the elapsed years (two are considered). Table 11 Mean value of the IF and CI for 2008 R&D Highlights. Values italic are excluding the publication in Science from the optics divisions. Highlights E M O O T INRIM INRIM Mean IF 1,81 3,88 15,94 3,88 8,68 5,04 3,47 Mean CI previous report 1,5 4, ,50 16,80 3,21 Mean CI actual report 1,86 4, ,50 21,62 4,46 Mean CI of 2008 products 1,48 1,75 11,82 1,76 1,24 3,62 1,73 CI/Year 0,93 2, ,5 6,75 10,81 2,23 Page 12 of 80

13 These data are not satisfactory for Electromagnetism and Mechanics and only sufficient for Thermodynamic division: in fact for these divisions, the CI per year of the highlights is lower even significantly than the corresponding IF. On the contrary, Optic division had excellent Highlights even in 2008 even excluding the exceptional paper Frequency ratio of Al + and Hg + single ion optical clocks: metrology at the 17 th decimal place published in Science 319 (2008), ; we underline also that this publication has a number of citations about 14 times the IF of the prestigious review Science. Evolution of the 2007 R&D Highlights Fejl! Henvisningskilde ikke fundet. reports the upgraded mean values of the citation indices together with the mean Impact Factors for the 2007 R&D highlights and their CI normalized to the elapsed years (three are considered). Table 12 Mean value of the IF and CI for 2007 R&D Highlights Highlights E M O T INRIM Mean IF 3,27 2,36 5,42 5,13 4,16 Mean CI previous report 3,00 20,00 39,00 13,50 14,89 Mean CI actual report 3,67 21,00 43,00 17,00 19,00 CI of 2007 products 2,69 10,00 8,36 3,95 4,73 CI/Year 1,22 7,00 14,33 5,67 6,33 These data are judged very positively both at INRIM level and in most cases also at Division level: the mean CI of Highlights is greater of the mean CI of the 2007 publications, indicating that presented Highlights are the most interesting publications of 2007 for each Division; the CI per year is significantly higher than the mean IF, for all division apart Electromagnetic, that did not produce significant Highlight in Table 13 reports for each 2007 highlight the Impact Factors, the total number of citations obtained up to now and the number per year. Table 13 Statistical analysis of 2007 Highlights 2007 Highlights IF Total CI CI/year E1 2,37 1 0,33 E2 3,72 3 0,67 E3 3,72 7 2,00 M 2, ,67 O1 7, ,00 O2 3,71 4 1,00 T1 3, ,00 T2 7, ,00 Highlight Average 4, ,33 The data confirm the previous conclusions and those of the previous report, i.e. three papers, one of Mechanics, one of Optics and one of Thermodynamics, have a number of citations per year considerably higher than the impact factor: these papers have to be considered as real scientific highlights, because they caused a significant interest in the scientific community. For the Department as a whole, the global performance is positive; at Division level, it is confirmed that the Electromagnetic division did not produce in 2007 papers judged enough interesting by the scientific community. Page 13 of 80

14 3.2 Benchmarking research activity The following Table 14 report a comparison between the number of publications and of citations during the period of INRIM with those of some other metrological Institutes around the world, we use as benchmarks. The reason for the choice of these Institutes is given in the last column of the Table 14. The citations are those quoted by ISI Web of Science at the end of The reported Citation Index is calculated as the ratio between the number of citations and that of publications; it is normalized in order to make it comparable with the IF. The normalization factor takes into account that a publication of 2006 had more than five year to be cited, one of 2007 more than four year and so on. The normalization factor results to be 1,756. Institute Publications Total Citations CEM ,27 Normalized CI Why brenchmark? VSL ,43 Smaller Institute Similar in size to INRIM, goverment institution DFM ,83 Small, NMI with a scientific profile NRC ,90 INRIM ,91 Similar to INRIM, part of the Canadian Research Council METAS ,20 Similar but smaller than INRIM KRISS ,79 LNE ,43 Similar in size to INRIM, part of a Scientific Institute Bigger than INRIM, part of a big Institute Table 14 Citation Index for seven National Metrology Institutes, used for benchmarking of INRIM s scientific performance It is interesting to underline that the INRIM normalized CI is very similar to the mean IF of the same time period, reported in Table 14: in average the interest of the scientific production is at the same level of its quality, so the same consideration we made on the quality of the research hold also for the interest of the research. The normalized CI is reported in the following Figure 1. Normalized Citation Impact for publications 5,00 4,50 4,00 3,50 3,00 2,50 2,00 1,50 1,00 0,50 0,00 CEM VSL DFM NRC INRIM METAS KRISS LNE Figure 1 Citation impact or normalized citations for for INRIM and seven forein NMIs, used for benchmarking. The period is chosen for both citations and publications used to calculate the CI. Page 14 of 80

15 We underline that the actual position of INRIM as a research NMI and R&D Institute is at a medium level in an International comparison, the same of DFM and NRC; this may be considered as a satisfactory performances. At the same time it shows how at International level there are similar metrological institutes with scientific performances considerably higher than those of INRIM and indicates the target level of quality to reach in the next future. 3.3 Analysis of the research activity The evaluations of the research activity follows essentially the same lines of the 2009 evaluation; it includes also the new document published in July 2010, INRIM ten year strategy document, which gives a revised reference frame of the entire INRIM activity. Although it was published only in July 2010, it was necessarily prepared well before and thus probably influenced the research activity: we will therefore try to trace this influence through the 2010 activities. According to the strategy document, over the coming decade, the strategic activities of INRIM will be directed along four mail lines: fundamental metrology, applied metrology, interdisciplinary metrology and emerging metrology sectors. The objectives will be: for fundamental metrology, guarantee the foundations of the International System, by keeping the science of measurement abreast of scientific and technological progress, during a decade dominated by the reformulation of the units based on the values of the fundamental physical constants. for applied metrology, meet the demand for measurement technologies and dissemination of the units throughout the production system, in areas such as dimensional metrology for the aerospace sector and the metalworking and mechanical engineering industry, the timing for the Galileo satellite navigation system, the new harmonised measurements standards necessary in the biomedical, agro-alimentary and pharmaceutical sectors. for interdisciplinary metrology, contribute with reference materials and measurement technologies to the attainment of socio-economic objectives, for: o o o o Environment climate and environmental monitoring, a sustainable use of water, and renewable energy sources; Energy energy efficiency and energy saving, the optimisation of the distribution networks and the characterisation of fluid energy sources; New Technologies the areas of Nanotechnologies, Spintronics and Quantum Technologies; Health Ultrasound diagnostics and treatments, Image diagnostics and the prevention of exposures to electromagnetic fields; for emerging metrology sectors, meet a growing demand in Italy for the development of metrology activities in the field of biosciences and the measurement of the quantities typical of materials engineering and communications technologies. The first two research lines are traditional in the INRIM research, and thus are easily identified in the 2010 activity, the last two are rather new lines and it is interesting to trace their growing importance. As in 2009, the activity of the four divisions was organized in research programs, which have changed very little with respect to previous years. Each program has its own staff of researchers, technologists and technicians and, Page 15 of 80

16 following the classification adopted in 2009, develops two principal types of research activities: - institutional research projects, strictly related to the INRIM metrological mission and carried on with internal INRIM funds and with funds of the international metrological community: they cover essentially the first strategic line of the previous list, - other research projects or contracts with national or international funding agencies, which cover essentially the second strategic line. Comparing this classification with the strategic lines of the previous list, the fundamental metrology is covered by the institutional projects, the applied metrology is found in the other research projects or contracts ; the two last strategic lines are shared by the two types of activities, with a larger fraction in the institutional projects, as expected for new emerging researches. Table 15 shows a map of the metrology areas covered by the divisions (and by the research programs within the division), organised, to the extent feasible, in relation to the areas identified at international level (Consultative Committees of the CIPM and EURAMET Technical Committees): Page 16 of 80

17 Table 15 Map of INRIM metrology areas Div Field Sub-field Progr. E DC & Q. metrology Josephson effect and DC voltage E1 Quantum Hall effect and DC resistance Single electron tunnelling Low DC current E2 E6 E2 Low frequency AC/DC transfer, AC voltage and current, impedance E2, E3 Radiofrequencies and RF power, scattering parameters, RF impedance E3 Microwaves Power and energy AC power and energy E3, E5 Electric and magnetic fields (incl. high voltage/high current tests) Magnetic measurements and properties E4, E5 E7, E8 M Mass & related quantities Mass standards M1 Avogadro Constant Density and volume Viscosity Fluid flow Force Pressure (high and low) Gravimetry Hardness Vibration M1 M1, M3 M3 M3 M2 M3 M2 M2 M2 Length Basic length M4 Dimensional metrology M5 O Time and Frequency Frequency standards O1 Photometry & Radiometry Timescale Photometry and radiometry Quantum optics O2 O3 O4 T Temperature Contact temperature measurement T1 Non-contact temperature measurement T2 Humidity Humidity T1 Acoustics Physical acoustics T3 Acoustic engineering T4 Quantity of matter Gas T5 Electrochemistry Inorganic Organic Bioanalysis E2 T5, T6 T5, T6 T5, T6, E6 Page 17 of 80

18 High level coverage of these areas has entailed, albeit with different degrees of intensity, various activities of a general nature, such as: Participation in the development of joint research projects (JRPs) within the framework of the imera-plus projects. Participation in EURAMET activities and execution of the European Metrology Research Programme (EMRP) in particular through the production of proposals for the Industry and Environment calls. Participation in international (FP 7), national (PRIN) and regional research programmes (with special regard to the Piedmont Region programme in support of research). Participation in the activities of CIPM and its Consultative Committees. Participation in international comparisons and in the analysis of the calibration and measuring capabilities (CMC) of member institutes, within the framework of the Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA) of the CIPM. Researcher mobility and exchange programmes with foreign metrology institutes and research centres, with production of PhD dissertations, degree theses and internships. The first three types of activities are closely related to research projects, the following two are related to the INRIM performance as National Metrology Institute ( NMI role ), the last one concerns essentially the dissemination of the INRIM results. Although the separation between the three main types of activities research, NMI, dissemination- is arbitrary, because they have common features and share the same finality, the last two types will be discussed in detail in the next two sections. The breakdown of the full time equivalent researchers and technologists (FTE) dedicated to the different types of activities is shown in Section 8.7 for INRIM as a whole and for each division. As already noted for previous years, relevant differences exist between the divisions in the percentage of activity dedicated to the research compared with that dedicated to the NMI role or to the dissemination, however, compared to 2009, the differences seem to gradually reduce.. We will now describe the relevant aspects of the research activity, as it emerges from the final 2010 activity report, divided, for clarity reasons, into a subsection which summarizes the institutional research activity and a subsection which contains a detailed description of projects and contracts. With respect to the 2009 activity report, in the 2010 report the description of the research activities is organized in a clearer and more uniform way at the division level: we will therefore follow rather closely the final 2010 report Institutional research projects The institutional research projects represent the main research activity of the divisions: they regard the research on measurement standards, fundamental constants and the strictly related research on supporting devices and labs. Generally they do not refer only to 2010, but are inserted in a long range development plan. The most significant ones are collected in Table 16, organized according to the division programs, in order to have also the reference frame of the internal research organization. Important results obtained in fundamental physics were also included Page 18 of 80

19 Table 16: Institutional research activity of the programs Program E1: Quantum devices and voltage standards E2: Metrology of electrical resistance and impedance E3: Metrology of variable electrical quantities and metrology electrical quantities at high frequencies E4: Mathematical models and their applications to materials and devices E5: Electromagnetic fields and power systems Metrol. Subfields J.E. QHE, LDC, AC- V&C, El.CH AC-V&C, RF, AC-P&E FIELD AC-P&E, FIELD E6: Nanofabrication SET, BIOAN E7: Magnetic materials and measurements MAG.M E8: Electromagnetic properties of matter MAG.M Highlights of research on measurement standards and fundamental constants/physics Arrays of Josephson junctions for the programmable voltage standard Farad from ohm derivation for the connection with physical constants Graphene single layer device for QHE measurements Evolution with frequency of the motion of Bloch walls Strictly related research Primary cell for low electrolitical conductance measurements Phase comparison device for high current derivators Algorithm for the determination of the e.m. radiation absorption rate Resistance-capacitance partition device for high voltage measurements NANOFAB lab implementation Antidot nanostructures Magnetic tunnel transistor prototype Volume of solid standards by M1: Mass measurement MASS, DENS weighing in air at different densities M2: Dynamometry M3: Fluid mechanics M4: Mise en pratique of the metre and space technologies M5: Precision engineering FORCE, GRAV, Software to reconstruct a mass distribution HARD, VIBR generated gravity field DENS, VISC, Nanobalance project and realization for Low pressure meas. Standard FLOW, PRESS Thales-Alenia Space LENG Long range interferometer Near IR thermal imaging spectrometer Nano-angles generator for autocollimators DIM.MET calibration M6: International System and fundamental constants Table 16 continues MASS, AVOG Avogadro and molar Planck (NA h) constant (lattice parameters of WASO04 crystals) Mass spectroscopy Page 19 of 80

20 Table 16 continued Highlights of research on Program Metrol. Subfields measurement standards and fundamental constants/physics Strictly related research O1: Frequency standards standard ITCsF2 Cryogenic primary frequency FR.ST O2: Algorithms and TIME UTC UTC(k) uncertainties timescales O3: Photometry and radiometry PHOT qu-candela O4: Quantum optics QO Sub-shot noise in quantum imaging with twin beams O5: Maintenance and dissemination TIME PHOT T1: Temperature and Kelvin definition, Boltzmann humidity: standards and new developments CT, NCT, HUM constant; Co-C eutectic for HT standard KC EURAMET T.K6 results of T2: Measurement techniques in thermometry CT, NCT, HUM the dew/frost temperature scale from and hygromet -50 C to +20 C T3: Physical acoustics ACOU.PH Boltzmann constant T4: Sound in air and ultrasound metrology ACOU.ENG T5: Metrology of biosciences and trace substances GAS, BIOAN T6: Metrology in chemistry INORG, ORG, and biotechnologies BIOAN Evaluation of all timing aspects of the Galileo system Superconducting devices (TES) with <0,2 ev energy resolution Network Time Services synchronization system Liquid phase sound velocity device for thermodynamic properties determination Power measurement of High Intensity Therapeutic Ultrasound up to 500 W Multi-photon microscope based on coherent Raman scattering and two photon excitation techniques. Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) reference generator Biosensors for the agro-alimentary sector Partly fluorinated graphene sensors Other projects and contracts There is a large number and variety of research projects and contracts ranging from national to international projects, involving small or large amounts of funding and personnel, based on fundamental or applicative subjects, etc. To obtain an overall view of the projects and of their relations to the programs, we grouped them according to the following categories: - imera plus projects in ERA NET VII EC Framework Program (FP7); - EMRP JRP projects - other international projects; - PRIN 2007 and 2008; - national and regional projects, contracts or contributions - New ideas and Relevant investment internal selection Page 20 of 80

21 Electricity & Magnetism Length Health SI & Fundamental imera plus projects in ERA NET VII EC Framework Program (FP7) These projects include key metrological aspects identified in 2007 at the international level as part of the European Metrology Research Program (EMRP). The first tranche started in 2008, structured in 4 targeted programs (TP): SI & fundamental constants, Health, Length, Electricity; INRIM is present in 17 out of 22 projects which passed the selection, and coordinates 4 of them (in bold characters). The real implementation started in 2009 and continued through Table 17 lists the programme (Call), the code, acronym and title of the project, the INRIM programme of which the project is part and the funding over the three-year period. Table 17 Call, JRP-iMERA Plus, INRIM programmes and funds allocated (k ) Call Code Acronym Title Progr. k T1.J1.1 e-mass T1.J1.2 NAH T1.J1.4 The watt balance route towards a new definition of the kilogram Avogadro & molar Planck constants for the redefinition of the kg Determination of the Boltzmann constant for the redefinition of the kelvin M M T T1.J2.1 OCS Optical clocks for a new definition of the second O T1.J2.3 Qu-Candela T2.J04 Regenmed Candela: Towards quantum-based photon standards Metrology on a cellular scale for regenerative medicine O T5, T T2.J07 EBCT External Beam Cancer Therapy T T2.J10 Boltzmann constant TRACE- BIOACTIVITY E2, Traceable measurements for biospecies and ion E4, activity in clinical chemistry M3 T3.J1.1 Nanoparticles Traceable characterization of nanoparticles M T3.J1.4 NANOTRACE New Traceability Routes for Nanometrology M T3.J2.2 NIM Tech Metrology for New Industrial Measurement Technologies 95.9 M T3.J3.1 Long distance Absolute long distance measurements in air M T4.J01 Power&Energy Next generation of power and energy measuring E3, techniques E T4.J02 NanoSpin Nanomagnetism and Spintronics E T4.J03 JOSY Next generation of quantum voltage systems for wide range applications T4.J04 ULQHE Enabling ultimate metrological QHE devices T4.J07 EMF and SAR EMRP - JRP projects Traceable measurement of field strength and SAR for the Physical Agents Directive E The second and most important stage of the EMRP was formally inaugurated with the joint resolution of the European Parliament and Council (16 September 2009) on the participation of the Community (pursuant to Art. 169 of the European Treaty) in the EMRP program undertaken by 22 member states through EURAMET e.v. The overall commitment over a 7 year period of the participant countries comes to 200 M, to which Italy contributes about 7%, with a total of E2, E6 E4, E Page 21 of 80

22 14 M, i.e., ca 2 M per year, of which about 200 k as an annual contribution to the common pot and the costs of the EMRP secretariat. The first call on the theme of Energy ended on 2 November INRIM participated in the preparatory stages of the call with a proposal for 5 Potential Research Topics (PRTs), all of which were accepted to become part of the 16 Selected Research Topics (SRT) - INRIM participates in 7 JRPs, whilst ENEA-INMRI participates in JRP11. The EU funds to be received by INRIM over a three-year period come to ca 680 k (Table 18). Table 18 Art. 169/EMRP Energy JRPs with the participation of INRIM and INMRI-ENEA (in italics) JRP Title INRIM progr. Funds allocated JRP07 Characterisation of energy gases T2, T JRP03 Metrology for energy harvesting E4, E2, E JRP10 Metrology for Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) T3, M JRP14 Metrology for smart electrical grids E3, E JRP09 Metrology for solid-state lighting O2, T JRP15 Metrology for high-voltage direct current (HVDC) E3, E JRP11 Metrology for new generation of nuclear power plants ENEA-INMRI JRP01 Metrology for biofuels T3, E2, INRIM attributes top priority to these Joint Projects, in view of their significance in demonstrating the viability of international integration at the highest level, a significance that goes well beyond economic returns. Another key element is the high interdisciplinary content of the themes involving activities that cut across all INRIM Divisions. Since the participation in the EMRP JRPs must be co-funded by INRIM, the prior tasks for the coming years are de facto established and it is imperative that IN- RIM can rely on a specific additional contribution from the MIUR to cover, at least partly, the co-funding quota requested of INRIM (14 M over 7 years). Other international projects The participation in these projects underlines a high level presence at the international level, related to the good scientific competences and excellent facilities present in the Institute. The projects are listed in Table 19. Page 22 of 80

23 Table 19: Other international projects Funding agency Description Progr. Expected (k ) EC FP7 with University of Cambridge EC FP7 with Alesamonti EC FP7 with Heinrich-Heine- Universität Düsseldorf (UDUS) EC FP7 with University of Picardie J.Verne of Amiens Solid State Energy Efficient Cooling (SSEEC) (01/10/2008; 3 years) Self Optimising Measuring Machine Tools (SOMMACT) (01/09/2009; 3 years) Development of high-performance transportable and breadboard optical clocks and advanced subsystems (SOC2) (1 /10/2010; 4 years) Functionalities of Bismuth based nanostructures (Bis- Nano) (1 /10/2010; 3 years) E8 233 M5 537 O1 104 E 129 EC FP7 QUIT Quantum optical sources for quantum Technology.? 900 EC FP7 PROGEN Nanolab? 200 EC FP7 PRIN 2007 and 2008 GAMEFS, on the measurement of the gravitational deflection of light.? 120 Although not particularly important from the financial point of view, these projects are important because they show a good connection with the university fundamental research. These projects are listed in Table 20. Only the 2007 PRIN projects are reported in Table 20, which were approved only at the end of 2008, were fully activated in 2009 and continue in Table 20: PRIN 2007 projects coordination Description Progr Funding (k ) Polit.To Time of flight telemetry M4 22 Polit.To Electromagnetic fields mitigation E4-E5 62 Polit.To Polit.To & Perugia Univ. Feasibility study of a Earth-Space quantum communication channel (CCQOTS) O4 10 Atomic clocks anomalies O2 16 National and regional projects, contracts or contributions These projects arise in the context of the national or regional tenders for research and innovation and in collaboration with academic and/or industrial partners. They are very numerous: a selection of the most significant ones, which in particular takes into account the financial relevance, is listed below. The very large number of national and regional projects (mostly regional) is impressive: although the INRIM management should carefully monitor and control these external activities in order to make them functional and not conflicting to the main INRIM role, there are positive aspects as, for instance, raising funds for upgrading the lab facilities or contributing with the internal competences to solve specific environmental or industry problems. These projects are listed in Table 21. Page 23 of 80

24 Table 21 - Piedmont Region and MIUR & other projects undertaken or underway in 2010 Commissioned/funded by Topic Progr. Total k Piedmont Region with Om-MANUNEron (10/11/2010; 2 Fiber Optics Magnetostrictive sensor years) E7 140 Piedmont Region Piedmont Region with PoliTo Piedmont Region Piedmont Region with Sorin Cardio Systems and technologies for space exploration (STEPS) (04/12/2008; 3 years) Nanomaterials and technologies for intelligent monitoring of safety, quality and traceability in confectionery products (NAMATECH). (01/01/2009; 3 y) Metrology at molecular and cellular level for regenerative medicine (METREGEN)*. (26/01/2009; 3 y) Stem cells for cardiac disease therapy and regenerative medicine (ACTIVE) (15/06/2009; 3 years) M5 80 E7/8 86 T5 689 T5 178 Piedmont Region with Fidia Magnetostrictively actuated platform for milling induced vibration damping (MAGDAMP).(04/2009; 3 y) E4 223 Piedmont Region with Olivetti I-Jet spa Piedmont Region with Politecnico di Torino InkJet printing technology for advanced electronics applications (printtag); (06/06/2009; 2 years) Preservation, safeguard and valorisation of masonry decorations in the architectural historical heritage of Piedmont (1/03/2010; 3 years) E8 82 T4 65 MIUR PRIN projects (07/2010; 2 years) E2, E8, M5 117 Magnetic drive pneumatically actuated coaxial valve OMAL Lombardy Region (02/2009, 2 years) E4 91 RAI Time signal broadcasting (1/07/2009; 3 years) O2 195 Magneti Marelli S.p.A. Guidelines for the design of sports car exhaust systems, in terms of acoustic comfort and sporty sound quality (15/10/2009, 1 year) T4 25 NKT Cables GmbH Magnetic shielding of power lines (23/12/2009, 2 y) E4 12 Autostrade per l Italia S.p.A. Identification and verification of technical performances of LED light fixtures for use in tunnels (8/07/2009, 1 y) O3 47 Malta Standards Authority (MSA) Organisation of a training course in time and frequency metrology (03/2010, 2 months) O2 5 Table 21 continues Page 24 of 80

25 Table 21continued: Cesare Quaranta s.r.l. Giorgio Sommariva ENEA ENEA Chinese National Institute of Metrology (NIM) Thales Alenia Space France (TAS-F) MAGER s.r.l. Arelettronica s.r.l. Graniti Fiandre Teseo S.p.A. Ansaldo Energia Measurements and tests for the characterisation and development of US transducers to equip aesthetic treatment apparatus (10/02/2010, 6 months) Technical characterisation and performance evaluations of LED lighting product applications (3/03/2010, 1 year) Optical and thermal properties of road surfaces and application conditions in relation to lighting systems and urban heat island phenomena (5/07/2010, 6 months) Study of the characteristics of street lighting systems for the evaluation of upward light energy loss (5/07/2010, 6 months) Scientific collaboration on Cryogenic Thermometry (16/07/2010; 1 y) Implementation of the Time and Geodetic Validation Facility (TGVF) for IOV validation; (07/2010; 2 years) Metrological characterisation of pneumostatic bushes (5/10/2010, 3 months) Verification of the technical performances of LED light fixtures (8/03/2010, 1 year) Verification of the efficacy of traditional building materials with titanium dioxide on human mesenchymal stem cells (17/12/2010, 6 months) Traceability assurance of a laboratory for the calibration of high precision electrical instruments (16/12/2010, 6 months) Thermoconvector tube for the calibration of high precision temperature sensors (1/11/2009, 1 year) T4 35 O3 20 O3 20 O3 36 T2 7.5 O2 956 M2 15 O3 6 T5 15 E2 9 T2 38 Compagnia di San Paolo NANOFAB 1200 Compagnia di San Paolo Applications of hyperentangled states 100 Compagnia di San Paolo LINK 400 Compagnia di San Paolo Standard Atomic mass unit 100 Piedmont Region TIPE - Transmission Infrastructure for Power Exch E4-E5 300 Piedmont Region YTRO - Ytterbium Trap Reference Oscillator O1 840 Piedmont Region WISE CELL - Wide range sensors & instruments for fuel cells T3 100 (*) Actual revenue is higher, as it includes 885 k to be distributed to various partners. Page 25 of 80

26 Projects carried on within consortia or regional innovation poles INRIM participates, together with other institutions, in regional innovation poles or in consortia which were set up in order to be able to apply for and eventually obtain funds for specific research projects. Details on the poles and on the consortia are given in Chapter 5 ; Table 22 here are summarized, for each consortium/pole, the projects with the relative funding. Table 22 - Projects developed within Regional Innovation Poles or consortia Regional Innovation Poles Research projects Progr. Total k Pole for Mechatronics (MESAP) AMICO M5 86 FAROS (24 months from June 2010) M5 36 PROMAME (12 months from June 2010) M5 33 Pole for sustainable architecture and hydrogen (POLIGHT) MEMSEAL-FC (18 months from 27/01/2010) ENERGY C-BOX (24 months from 1/09/2010) T2 68 T2 116 Pole for new materials (Proplast consortium) POLIMAG (24 months from 1/09/2010) E7, E8 66 Agroalimentary Pole MICROSAT (24 months from 30/06//2010) T5 49 Pole for biotechnologies and biomedical (BIO- TECH) Torino Time Consortium (CTT) FLUOMAG E7, E8 67 BANP (24 months from 30/06/2010) T5 45 PTF 225 GAL-PMI O1 21 IRGAL New ideas and Relevant Investment internal selections In 2008 INRIM promoted two internal selections, namely New Ideas to foster the presentation of new research ideas, which cannot be easily included in the main lines of the institutional research, and Relevant Investment to develop or upgrade relevant instrumentation facilities. 70 different projects were presented, 46 for New Idea and 24 for Relevant Investment ; all the projects were judged by external referees and the following projects were funded, for a total of about 1 M. The new ideas and Significant investments projects are listed in Table 23 and Table 24 respectively. Page 26 of 80

27 Table 23 Proposals chosen under New Ideas Area O1-O4 O4 T1-T3 E1 E1 M4 T5 Title of proposal Source of two fields correlated by 4-wave mixing in caesium vapours for non linear spectroscopy and quantum information Calibration of photon-number-resolving (PNR) detectors by means of entanglement assisted quantum process tomography Thermoacoustic methods for energy certification (TEACH) Josephson π junctions for "quiet" flux qubits Development of phase slip devices for use as current quantum measurement standards Absolute measurement of distance with sub-wavelength resolution Cellular and macromolecular scale metrology for regenerative medicine Table 24 - Proposals chosen under Significant Investments Area E2 O1 E7 E6 T4 Title of proposal Apparatus for cryogenic experiments Apparatus for cryogenic Cs fountain primary frequency standards Stroboscopic measuring system Biometrology laboratory Apparatus for metrology of therapeutic applications of ultrasound The principal results achieved with these initiatives are listed below. E1, E2, E6 and E7 areas: A sputtering system for high precision gold-palladium metal contacts on micro and nanometric structures has been acquired. SNIS Josephson junction sandwiches with variable content CuNi alloy ferromagnetic layer were characterised and geometrisation techniques with focused ion beam were investigated. Tests were conducted on a new He 3 cryogenic insert for the electrical characterisation of semiconductor devices (Hall devices, Josephson junctions, etc.) at 300 mk. An experimental set-up for standard installation is being designed. The Biometrology laboratory was completed and began work at the end of It is equipped for the execution of near infrared (NIR) and medium infrared (MIR) spectroscopic measurements as well as Fourier transform Raman measurements (FT-Raman with NIR excitation wavelength: 1064nm). It is also equipped with structures and equipment for the modification and characterisation of organic materials, and for the production of functionalised nanoparticles. The laboratory made it possible to complete the Ribes industrial project, paving the way for participation in the 2010 EMRP Industry & Environment calls, with projects concerning the analysis of surfaces (Industry call) and the production of graphene based ambient sensors (Environment call). Page 27 of 80

28 The stroboscopic magneto-optical measuring system was used to investigate of magnetisation process in transverse anisotropy amorphous ribbons. The study of this process, so far described in the literature solely for frequencies below 10kHz, was extended to an excitation frequency of up to 2MHz. It proved possible to examine the effects on magnetic loss of nonlinear processes such as nucleation and domain subdivision, which could be seen directly in magneto-optical images. The findings confirmed the progressive inhibition of these effects with increasing frequency, up to a level where the magnetisation process is wholly dominated by magnetic rotations. O1 activities: The new frequency standard, ITCsF2, was completed and it final accuracy is currently being evaluated. On a preliminary basis, accuracy was estimated to be 4E-16. The cryogenic regime reduces the blackbody radiation shift by two orders of magnitude by the new optical bench permits a significant reduction in the uncertainty due to atomic density. O4 proposal activities: Besides theoretical studies and the development of a programme for the numerical optimisation of PNR detector response probability reconstruction, the activities included the development of FPGA electronic components for data collection. A first experimental measurement yielded encouraging results. Laboratory work for the optimisation of twin-photons source continues, and a bright portable source of SPDC with periodically poled crystals was developed. O1-O4 proposal activities: Aim of the project is the creation of a source of correlated bipartite fields based on the 4-wave-mixing (4WM) process in hot Caesium vapours. After setting up a dedicated test bench, the activity was carried on in order to observe the phenomenon, but no results have been obtained so far, also due to a lack of information in the literature. After a number of attempts, it was concluded that the two lasers used in the process should be phase correlated. An initial version of the phase correlation system has been produced. M4 proposal activities: The interferometer was produced as planned, and the signals obtained were successfully compared with the theoretical model, which confirmed the possibility of attaining the solution envisaged. Thermodynamics projects An inverted fluorescence microscope and a stoke and anti-stoke Raman spectrophotometer were installed. This instrumentation made it possible to improve the optical spectroscopy and fluorescence detection techniques for organic and inorganic compounds, for the creation of a biometrology laboratory. The results obtained with the aid of these instruments include: two publications on JCR journals, a workshop organised by INRIM, participation in the Surface Analysis WG of the CCQM, participation in the 2010 EMRP Industry call, and the attainment of the Surf Chem JRP in which INRIM is WP leader. Page 28 of 80

29 3.3.3 Specific suggestion for the improvement of the Scientific activities The following specific actions are suggested by the evaluation Committee to improve the scientific performance and its documentation: 1) During the years the target quality of the scientific production for a NMI and R&D research Institute was permanently achieved only by the Optics division; all other Division have an average quality of the scientific production lower than this target level: actions should be taken to improve such aspect. 2) A clear distinction between research products of R&D and NMI activities as well as of the equivalent human resources involved is recommended; this will make possible to evaluate separately NMI and R&D research activities. 3) A publication list of the last five years should be given in which, together with the Impact Factor, also the number of citations obtained for each year is reported. 4) The strategy with respect to the external contracts should be defined, as already requested in the previous report. 5) Consider establishing, at the INRIM level, a personal appraisal system that reflects the importance of the work in scientific research. To the degree that such a system exists, it would be useful to present it to the Committee for evaluation. 6) As last year, the Committee strongly recommend that the presence at International Conferences, meetings and Organisms will be maintained also for the next years at these levels. Page 29 of 80

30 4 National Measurement Standards The four previous reports have reported on the special tasks that are addressed at NMIs in order for them to ensure worldwide dissemination of measurements that are traceable to the SI. Brief descriptions were given of the organisations that have been established, both in Europe (EURAMET) and globally (The metre convention, often referred as BIPM). This refers to the metrological activity, which is not necessarily linked to research, however necessary at the national Metrology Institute level. These tasks have been referred to as NMI work but in order to underline that the key purpose is to ensure that the countries each have appropriate access to National Measurement Standards, in this year s report they are identified as such or simply referred to as standards work. The National Measurement Standards-work may be subdivided into two tasks: Maintenance and upgrading of national standards This task ensures that the national standards at INRIM are international accepted as sources of measurement traceability. It involves operational maintenance, as well as successful participation in international comparisons, maintenance of an appropriate quality system, and international acceptance of the measurement capabilities (stated in terms of uncertainties) associated with calibrations that are performed. Upgrading of national standards, which does not involve new research, is also considered part of standards-work; Initial development of a new standard, including the necessary documentation in terms of calibration procedures, is possibly but not necessarily a scientific activity. The mutual recognition arrangement, CIPM-MRA, from 1999 has established the KCDB database, where all the necessary information is available for all states and economies that have signed the CIPM-MRA. Participation in international organisations Further to the technical work leading to the national entries in the KCDB, an NMI takes part in the substantial work in international organisations and forums, where metrology issues are discussed. INRIMs contributions to these standards-tasks are discussed below, followed by a analysis of its allocation of resources. Five year trends are given and bench marks against selected foreign NMIs. When appropriate for the analysis of the total Italian national metrology, data from ENEA-IMRI is given. Finally, some conclusions are given 4.1 Maintenance and upgrading of national standards Appendix C of the KCDB gives the number of entries for INRIM in Table 25. Each entry is a product or deliverable traceable to a national standards that INRIM maintains. The classification is made according the metrology areas used in the KCDB. Table 25shows that, with the exception of Chemistry, Italy has activity in all metrology areas at a level that one would expect for the NMI of a big country. This is compliant with INRIM s mission to maintain all measurement standards relevant for Italy except in Ionizing Radiation. Page 30 of 80

31 Metrology Area Short Division Acoustics, Ultrasound and Vibration AUV T,M Amount of substance QM T,E Electricity and Magnetism EM E Length L M Mass and Related Quantities M M Photometry and Radiometry PR O Thermometry T T Time and Frequency TF O Total for INRIM Ionising Radiation RI ENEA- INMRI Total for Italy Table 25. INRIM s calibration measurement capabilities (CMC) for the period Note that the measurement areas of the KCDB are defined like the technical fields of EURAMENT, except for the fact that the EURAMET field Flow is incorporated in the metrology area Mass. In 2009 and 2010, the figures for INEA-INMRI are also given. In 2010, the global number of entries was approximately The requirement of the CIPM-MRA that CMCs are subjected to peer-review was in 2010 addressed as follows. Considerable attention was devoted to the organisation of peer visits by researchers from the Spanish NMI, CEM, and the Portuguese NMI, IPQ, in connection with a project by the EURAMET TC-Q, for the verification of the CMCs and their quality management in the electrical, length, mass, force and pressure sectors. The visits were concluded successfully. The development of INRIMs CMCs over the five-year period is very limited. From 2006 to 2008 there was a moderate development in the areas AUV, QM, EM and L; and from the area showed a significant increase (This was a long delayed release from the consultative committee for temperature). One consequence is that Italy s share of the total number of CMCs has dropped marginally from 2.6% to 2.4% in 2009 and 2010 respectively; but more importantly, such a steady situation presumably reflects neither the developments in Italian needs for primary metrology nor the international technical development. During the visit, INRIM mentioned that work has indeed started to take a critical look at which CMCs should be maintained and which should be discontinued. In order to evaluate the Italian representation of CMCs in the 9 metrology areas relative to the total content of the KCDB appendix C, Figure 2 contains the relevant indicators. Except for Chemistry (which includes micro biology) there is an even distribution between the areas, in accordance with the mission item that INRIM looks after everything. However, with the limited resources that INRIM has access to in the foreseeable future, an alternative approach might be taken, namely focus more on areas, where INRIM (and historically its predecessors IMGC and IEN) internationally leading competences, including new areas where INRIM can make a special impact. Page 31 of 80

32 Representation of Italian CMCs 5.0% 4.0% 3.0% 2.0% 1.0% 0.0% AUV QM EM L M PR T TF RI Figure 2. Italy s representation in the CMC tables of the KCDB for the 9 metrology areas and relative to all participants. Note that in the KCDB flow is part of the mass area. The overall Italian participation is 2.4% The particular case of chemistry requires special attention as already mentioned in previous reports. The activity is quite limited, but extends over four different fields: Gases, electrolytic conductivity, metals and alloys, and bio analysis. Combined with the fact that there have been no new CMCs during the last three years, it is therefore difficult to see how chemical metrology in general will reach a satisfactory level at INRIM. The exception is bio-analysis, where a group of about 12 people has been established and seem to have reached a sustainable situation, both from the point of view of both science and standards. Finally, the new activities in nano-metrology both related to the areas M, L and EM have not been matured into any visible standards services. Since INRIM has both historically unique strengths, e.g in nano-hardness, and new activities, e.g. in nano-production, it is astonishing that there appears to be no related work in the national measurements standards. Metrology Area Short Div Acoustics, Ultrasound and Vibration AUV T,M Amount of substance QM T,E Electricity and Magnetism EM E Length L M Mass and Related Quantities M M Photometry and Radiometry PR O Thermometry T T Time and Frequency TF O Total for INRIM Ionising Radiation RI ENEA Total for Italy Table 26. Time development of comparisons that support INRIM s CMCs in Table 25. For 2009 and 2010, the figures for INEA-INMRI are also given. In 2010, the global number of entries was some Page 32 of 80

33 Appendix B of the KCDB gives the number of comparisons that support INRIM s CMCs. Table 26 gives the numbers for INRIM for and for for the whole Italian metrology organisation. The KCDB distinguish between key comparisons that concern basis quantities and supplementary comparisons that deal with non-basic and special quantities. Comparisons are divided into CIPM-comparisons, covering selected NMI s worldwide and regional comparisons, which are normally linked to a CIPM-comparison by having some dublicant participant, in order to document global equivalence for a measurement quantity. It should be noted that the comparisons mentioned in Table 26 for a given year are active in their support to a given set of CMCs. But they have not necessarily required technical activity in that year. Typical comparisons run for several years and have a validity of around 10 years. Inactive comparisons are also kept in KCDB for historic reasons; but they are not included in Table 26. Non-compliances that affect the validity of CMCs have resulted in the temporary removal of some 180 CMC s from appendix C for 10 countries. This has not involved Italy. Table 26 shows that the participation in Comparisons is well developed in Italy and demonstrates a steady increase. However, this increase in comparisons in appendix B with no associated increase in CMC entries in appendix Cs indicates that Italy is using more and more resources to document every CMC. 4.2 Participation in international organisations Below, INRIM s participation in the work under the Meter Convention and in EURAMET is described in Section 4.2.1, whereas its participation in standardization bodies and related organisations is describe in Section 4.2.2, since INRIM s work in such organisations are metrology related. It should be mentioned that INRIM does not participate in the work of the two legal metrology organisations OIML and WELMEC. Participation in other forums is described in Chapter 5, Section Metrology organisations The Meter Convention is an international treaty organisation, signed in 1875 by 18 states and by the end of 2010 encompassed some 83 states. It is ruled by the 18 member Comité International des Poids et Mesures, CIPM, elected at the quadrennial general conference. CIPM elects its president and supervises the BIPM. The CIPM MRA has been signed by the representatives of 83 institutes from 48 Member States, 30 Associates of the CGPM, and 3 international organizations and covers a further 136 institutes designated by the signatory bodies. CIPM currently has 10 Consultative Committees with participation of the leading institutes within the technical fields that the CCs represent. During 2009 INRIM maintained its traditional high activity in the CIPM and its consultative committees. There are only few changes with respect to It currently takes part in the work of all CCs, except the consultative committee for units, CCU. Also in EURAMET, INRIM has maintained the high activity of previous years in the committee structure. It now chairs the Technical Committee for Metrology in Chemistry with a staff member from the biotechnology group; this supports the Page 33 of 80

34 statement above that this group seem to have the greatest potential in the chemical area of INRIM. The European Metrology Research Programme, EMRP, is now running in its third year; and INRIM takes part in 28 research projects with funding from the European Commission (cf Chapter 3) Standardization, Scientific and Technical Committees The standardization activity is very stable, and particularly pursued at INRIM by participating in national (UNI, CEI, CIG, CTI, AICQ, etc.) and International (ISO, IEC, IUPAC, CISPR/A, CIE, CEN, IAU, ITU-R, etc.) standardization committee and also by coordinating some of these committees. The participation to metrological and accreditations organisms, beyond other scientific and technical organisms, also represents a particularly qualified and significant activity. The participation to numerous international and national scientific and technical organisms was also kept activated. Such aspects demonstrate the good relationships of INRIM with national and international institutions, with the collaboration in standardization activities and in the definition of measurement and test protocols. 4.3 Allocation of resources to standards work As mentioned in Chapter 7.3.2, the enumeration of resources to standards work seems to be done fairly consistent, and with no sign of significant differences between 2009 and We therefore repeat the evaluation from the 2009 evaluation report. The standards work takes up a significantly different proportion of the staff s time in INRIM s four divisions, as shown in Figure 13 and Table 39. According to these data, in 2009 INRIM allocated 59.5 FTE to standards work, or 29% of staff working time, compared to 61 FTE and 30% respectively in 2008 of staff working time. This is a significant amount that deserves attention from management as well as incorporation in the appraisal schemes of personnel. Unfortunately, there is no tradition for analysing in detail the standards work at metrology institutes, but a preliminary analysis for Danish Fundamental Metrology indicates that at DFM, 23% of the working time is dedicated to standards work, with 15% going to maintenance of standards and 8% to international organisations. As to the allocation of time to standards work in the four divisions, it ranges from 14% in OPTICS to 49% in MECHANICS. Provided that the estimates have been carried out in a uniform way, these differences reflect the different technical content in the divisions, and there seems to be no magic target number for the standards work. 4.4 Benchmarking In 1999 the Mutual Recognition Arrangement under the CIPM was signed, and currently, national metrology organisations from 84 states and economies participate. The CIPM-MRA sets procedures for mutual acceptance of measurement results under the Metre Convention. The acceptance is based on successful participation in comparisons, which are registered in the Appendix B of KCDB database and on a satisfactory operation in accordance with the quality standard ISO 17025, which is registered at the BIPM. The accepted calibration measurement capabilities CMC are registered in Appendix C of the KCDB. Page 34 of 80

35 ENTRIES After 11 years of operation, the KCDB content is based on a harmonised approach, so that the statistics that can be drawn from the database is relevant for benchmarking. Below, we give three examples of benchmarking using the KCDB: 1. CMC entries for appendix C. This indicates how many metrology services are provided by a national metrology organisation 2. Participation in comparisons from Appendix B. This indicates how much effort is dedicated to the documentation of the CMCs that are declared. 3. Ratio between CMCs and comparisons. This indicates how far the light shines from each comparison on the calibration portfolio, or how efficient a national metrology organisation is in making calibration offers for each comparisons. After all comparisons are a cost and calibrations give income. CMC tables (KCDB appendix C) CALIBRATION MEASUREMENT CAPABILITIES May 2010 Chemistry Ionizing radiation Country Figure 3 Calibration measurement capabilities CMC for Italian metrology organisation taken from the KCDB, and metrology organisations from seven other countries. Figure 3 shows extracts from the CMC tables for the eight countries chosen for benchmarking. In Figure 3 the metrology areas are grouped in three groups: General metrology (consisting of the seven traditional areas of mass, length etc.) Ionising Radiation (consisting of 3 sections), and Chemistry (consisting of 15 sub fields). Page 35 of 80

36 Key and supplementary Comparisons (KCDB Appendix B) PARTICIPATION IN KEY COMPARISONS, 2009 PARTICIPATION IN SUPPLEMENTARY COMPARISONS LEAD PARTICIPATION 50 LEAD PARTICIPATION France Korea Italy Holland Canada COUNTRY Switzerland Spain Denmark France Switzerland Italy Holland Korea COUNTRY Spain Denmark Canada Figure 4 Italy s representation in the key comparisons of the KCDB compared with the seven selected countries. Figure 5 Italy s representation in the supplementary comparisons of the KCDB compared with the seven selected countries. Figure 4 and Figure 5 show the participation in Key and Supplementary Comparisons by the eight countries. Key comparisons were originally meant to deal with key quantities such as base units, whereas supplementary comparisons were dealing with more applied quantities such as derived units; but the distinction between KC and SC have developed somewhat differently within the nine metrology areas, and is not entirely stringent. Italy s participation is third in both KCs and SCs, demonstrating that INRIM and INEA put emphasis on both base and derived units. Counter examples are Korea and Canada that put relatively more emphasis on base units. Relation between Comparisons and CMCs RATIO BETWEEN CMC AND KC+SC COUNTRY Figure 6 shows the average number of CMCs that is supported by one comparison. As mentioned above, CMCs represent products of NMIs and comparisons represent costs connected with delivering the products. Therefore, the ratio between the numbers of CMCs and the number of comparisons indicate some kind of efficiency of the product portfolio. Page 36 of 80

37 Smaller countries would be expected to be less efficient in this respect, because of the few quantities in each metrology area that they can offer. Bigger countries are on the other hand expected to be more efficient. If a country is highly specialised in its metrology services, it will appear more efficient. Figure 6 shows the average number of CMCs that is supported by one comparison. The two top countries are Holland and Korea, and they have both been specialising in gas metrology within the area of chemistry. At the bottom, one finds the smaller countries Denmark and Switzerland. Figure 7. Benchmarking Italy with France regarding representation of CMCs in the KCDB. Regarding the difficulty INRIM has to cover everything and take up new fields such as nano- and chemical metrology under a constant budget, Figure 7 compares Italy with France. France has obtained a fairly complete and uniform representation of CMCs by associated with nine other metrology institutions, whereas Italy has only associated one. In fact, very few countries, where the mission of the national metrology institute is to cover the complete national needs have maintained Italy s restrictive policy of designating institutes. Page 37 of 80

38 RATIO BETWEEN CMC AND KC+SC Development in Italy Figure 8 Evolution from2009 to 2010 of ration between CMCs and comparisons. As final benchmark for the evolution to Italian metrology viz à viz the global evolution of the KCDB Figure 8 indicates that things are going the wrong way. 4.5 Summary, assessment and recommendations Here, the summary and assessment is divided in two parts, namely the five year of INRIM s existence where the unification process was in focus, and the latest years, where the now fully unified NMI is challenge with developing dynamically under an effectively constant budget Five year summary and assessment When in 2006 Italy decided to unite the two existing NMIs IMGC and IEN, the task was to merge two brothers with a latent love-hate relation like in many noble families. The two institutes had vastly different company cultures and they in constant competition on the international scene, naturally often the competition was friendly. Five years later, in 2010, the resulting institute INRIM has emerged as a cohesive entity. And with the recent change in organisation and senior management, the organisation appears clearer, and well set for meeting the challenges of the future. The performance as a national metrology institute with the special task of maintaining national measurement standards has gone through the transition with a remarkable stability. Little of the strong sides of both IMGC and IEN has been lost during the process and is still found in the combined INRIM. However, also most of the weak sides of the two constituent NMI appear to prevail in the united body. It is as if the energy required in the successful unification has not left much energy in developing INRIM as a national metrology institute. Page 38 of 80

39 In conclusion, the Evaluation Committee expresses its admiration for the successful unification of IMGC and IEN, and expresses the wish that in the coming INRIM will develop according to its potential Summary and evaluation of recent developments During the recent years, the standards work at INRIM appears very stable. This means that the scientific development, both in INRIM s established areas or work as well as in new fields, have not manifested itself in new metrology services, as monitored by the CMC-entries of the KCDB. It also means that there seem to be no cleaning up process whereby INRIM can discontinue services that are no longer in sufficient demand or maybe can be delivered better by a foreign NMI. There seem to be a lack of understanding at INRIM that the national measurement standards, both the maintenance and upgrading of the physical standards as well as the associated committee work as a drain on resources that has to be prioritised against new developments of standards, or even against scientific work or other ways of disseminating metrology knowledge. As an example, the number of CMCs for each key- or supplementary comparison has dropped from 2.7 to below 2, putting Italy as the efficient country in the benchmarking shown in Figure Recommendations In order for INRIM to develop as a leading metrology institute both in Italy and worldwide it is recommended that: INRIM develops a plan and implement processes that put more dynamics into its provision of metrology services than has recently been the case. In short it means to the possible establishment of a national measurement standard is built in the scientific plan from the beginning. It also means there are plans for how to stop or devolve services that no longer warrant the resources that their maintenance require. Finally, a similar dynamical attitude should be applied to the assiocated committee work. INRIM further improves the enumeration of its resources so that it can be consistent support for the management of the INRIMs development. IINRIM improves its strategic work to include a long term strategy, a strategic action plan, as well as processes to implement and monitor its actions. This item is further exploited in Annex 7.3 Page 39 of 80

40 Knowledge Improvement Competence improvement Efficiency in resources use improvement INRIM brand improvement Competitiveness Improvement 5 Dissemination of Knowledge The economic and social impact of the scientific activities on the evaluation of knowledge dissemination represents a crucial aspect. In order to promote the development of the Italian system components (scientific knowledge transfer, exploitation and diffusion), the INRIM legislative decree n. 38/2004 explicitly deals with scientific and technologic competences diffusion and transfer. In particular, these activities include: i) knowledge and technology transfer to science, industry and society; ii) development of the calibration laboratories network (since 2010 in cooperation with Accredia); iii) high level scientific and technical services; iv) technical standardization cooperation; v) education and training; vi) technical support to legal, health and environmental metrology (in term of measurement method and traceability). In the following sections the above-mentioned different topics are specifically treated, by focusing the results obtained in the year With the aim of comparing the consistency of planned actions in the triennial plan with obtained results, the INRIM dissemination policy and strategies (toward internal division, other NMI, the scientific community, the industry and society) are briefly reported in Table 27. Table 27 Dissemination policy and strategies Continuous updating internal (INRIM- Division) (ICT, quality, safety and security,..) and seminar Internal training Cooperation between division and program n.a. Standard and CMC Improvement other NMI Bilateral and multilateral Agreement Foreign researchers and researchers abroad International cooperation with other NMI n.a. Support of new NMI companies Research contract Personal detachment Metrological services (accreditation of laboratory, calibration and test) n.a. (Prize,..) Patents and licenses; Spin-off scientific community International Conference, Standardization Committee Theses (doctorate, I and II level) Cooperation with University and Research Institute Congress Organiza tion and Sponsors hip Common Researche Plataform society Information and Education (environment, safety, security, legal metrology ) External Training Cooperation with regional institution and association n.a. (Publicity,...) Common Laboratories Page 40 of 80

41 5.1 Dissemination of know-how to the companies Knowledge dissemination to private and public companies was carried out by INRIM Institute with different activities as reported in Table 28 Table 28 Knowledge transfer other product applications Description Research programmes and contracts: contracts active in the year (82)* Research programmes and contracts: contracts signed in the year (39)* Research programmes and contracts: total income (k ) (4148)* 2847,2 2147,0 Regione Piemonte 567,4 538,9 1327,3 309,4 <European Community Industrial Companies Other public 187,0 449,3 199,1 688,9 463,6 647,9 319,0 973,1 227,8 999,8 747,7 90,1 Patents filed in Italy and requests for European patents Extension of patents abroad Calibration procedures in force Testing procedures in force No. of calibration certificates, test reports and other documents issued Income from calibration and testing activities (k ) Laboratory accreditation activities: no. of active accredited laboratories Laboratory accreditation activities: income from accredit. activities (k ) Designed instruments and devices: Electromagnetism Division Mechanics Division Optics Division n.a Total Thermodynamics Division Outstanding realized instruments, devices and software: Electromagnetism Division Mechanics Division Optics Division Total Thermodynamics Division Some of the 2008 data have been modified with respect to the 2008 Evaluation report Page 41 of 80

42 Administration and Scientific Councils (in the reports of All. p.to 8 and of All. p.to 3) recently underlined that "the technology transfer and the support to industries, services and society innovation (calibration, measurement and testing; patents and licenses; training researchers and technicians; dissemination of scientific culture and technical standards) is an INRIM priority. Nevertheless the three-year plan details only generic actions in sustaining technology transfer and innovation support to industries. Furthermore the mechanisms to promote and to support the knowledge dissemination are not adequately detailed, with particular reference to human and financial resources. As a consequence direct and indirect impact of INRIM researches on the productive system is not adequately evaluated by INRIM itself. In particular: i) no analysis regarding the applications of INRIM patents or applied researches are available; ii) no statistics about advantages induced by CMC s capabilities, standards and knowledge improvement on national productive system are carried out. Finally, it is not clear how the knowledge dissemination results are evaluated in relation to: i) Divisions funding; ii) human resources assignments; iii) researchers career progressions. So the knowledge dissemination activities seem to be a consequence of the researchers sensibility instead of a high direction careful planning Patents and licenses. Also in the 2010 INRIM has not been very active in the patents and licenses field. Only 3 new patents have been granted in 2010 and 1 other existing patent has been extended as European patent. In particular, the patents granted in 2010 are reported in the following Table 29. Only one patent has been mentioned in the INRIM Highlights 2010 and submitted to Evaluation Committee, although several researches presented to the evaluation committee could be patented or, however, successfully applied in industrial field. This aspect highlights both the limited industrial fallen back of the INRIM research knowledge and the INRIM limited interaction ability with the industrial system. Table 29 INRIM Patents Div. Typology Title Patentees Notes Inventors: T3 Extension of Apparatus for treatment of Patent No. A. Troia, D. Italian Patent waste water solution Madonna Ripa, R. Spagnolo PCT/IT2010/ T4 Italian National Patent Procedimento per la misura della conduttanza ultrasonora e relativo sistema di misura Inventors: G. Durando, C. Guglielmone Brevetto No. TO2010A M4 Italian National Patent renewal. Spectrophotometer and spectrophotometric process using fabry-perot resonator Inventors: M. Pisani, M. Zucco Brevetto No. WO 2007/ A2 M5 Italian National Patent Dispositivo per misure angolari dotato di elemento rotante Inventors: M. Pisani Brevetto No. PCT/IT2010/ Page 42 of 80

43 Patent benchmarking is used with the aim of reaching a better reference for the evaluation of INRIM. In fact by comparing the INRIM experience with analogous Italian (e.g. INO-CNR, ENEA) and European (e.g. PTB) institutes, it is possible to notice that: - INRIM patent number for year and person (approximately 1 for every 50 unit of staff) is comparable with the one of other institutes (about 1 for every 30 unit of staff for INO-CNR and 1 for every 400 units of staff for the PTB); - unlike other institutes, INRIM patents information is not easily available in the INRIM website (e.g. for PTB, INO-CNR, for ENEA). Finally the impact of patents on the INRIM is not systematically estimated and actually only few Patents seem to be used by private companies. Modern product development relies on a closer collaboration between knowledge centers and private entrepreneurs, but this connection is not well established at INRIM Calibration and test report The reliability of measurement instrument represents a fundamental prerequisite for all quality systems and all measurements results should be traceable to the SI. In Italy most of the calibrations are traceable with INRIM Institute. So the INRIM calibration activity in 2010 issued about calibration certificates and other metrological services. In particular, details of such activities are reported in the following Table 30. for Page 43 of 80

44 Table 30 INRIM Calibrations and tests in Report Number Division Calibration Certificates Test Reports Other Reports Total Reports E M O T Tot E M O T Tot E M O T Tot E M O T Tot E M O T Tot In the last three years the number of calibrations and tests is continuously decreased (e.g. tests number is even halved). This phenomenon can be attributed to the economic crisis, but it should be carefully monitored. In the 2010 the human resources dedicated to the calibration and test activity are about 24 FTE units (corresponding to 11,3% of whole personal), 3,25 FTE units of support to SAL and 6 FT units dedicated to SAL. So the pro-capita report number is about 60 reports a year for a person; this index seems to be quite high in term of productivity. Page 44 of 80

45 5.1.3 Accreditation services. Since the mid-1970 s, laboratory accreditation in Europe has maintained close relations with the respective national NMI, and in several cases calibration accreditation has been operated as part of an NMI. On December 2009 an Italian Governmental law assigned the role of sole National Accreditation Body to AC- CREDIA in compliance with EU Regulation 765/2008. So since 1st January 2010 SIT, as operational unit of COPA SCrl, has ceased to be one of the signatories of the EA-MLA and ILAC-MRA agreements for calibration laboratories. On 1st July 2011 INRIM signed an agreement with ACCREDIA and the calibration Department of ACCREDIA became operative from that date. The Laboratory Accreditation Service (SAL) Department operates in compliance with ISO/IEC and EA and ILAC regulations. So ACCREDIA has employed the competencies of INRIM and, in particular of SAL, and INRIM has thus maintained the function of primary metrological institute as assigned by law no. 273 of 11th August 1991 regarding the recognition of calibration Centres, and has undertaken the task of assessing technical and operational conformity. Actually accredited calibration laboratories according to the standard ISO/CEN are 164 with an overall number of sectors of 680. Details of this activities are reported in Table 31. Through accreditation of laboratories, INRIM potentially can disseminate its high technical knowledge to the industrial practitioners of metrology. Furthermore in the last years the Institute attention on safety, security and environmental field has significantly increased as shown by the accreditation on the chemical quantities (with 6 accredited laboratories), the environmental comfort (with 21 accredited laboratories on acoustic and photometric quantities), cronotachograph and speed meters (with 2 accredited laboratories). Table 31 INRIM Accreditation Activities Description Number Accredited Calibration Laboratories 164 New accredited Laboratories 0 Extensions 8 Renewals 24 Surveillances 104 Inter-comparisons (bilateral and multilateral) 68 Technical guides Scientific metrological services Less than 3% of INRIM total budget comes from technical and research activities involving private companies. Furthermore this quantity was reduced respect to the last year. On the other hand about 20% comes from self-funding: in particular in the 2010 about k 309,4 comes from projects and contracts financed by Piedmont Regional Authority for research projects funding, k 999,8 for research contracts with EC, k 90,1 for research activities submitted to other Public Bodies, k 747,7 for research activities involving private companies, k 1692,6 for consulting, calibrations, equipment tests and other activities, k Page 45 of 80

46 591,6 for laboratory accreditation. It is important to underline that in the last 5 years public and private contract number (see Table 28 and Table 32) is increased significantly and doubled with respect to 2006 (40 contracts active and 15 new signed contracts). As shown in the following Table 32, in the 2010 all divisions have been active in concluded research contract. In particular the INRIM drew up 30 new research contracts, so in the same year more than 89 research contracts were active. Among these, particularly interesting are: - the numerous EMRP, ESA-Galileo and imera-plus European contracts testifying the excellent scientific value of all INRIM Division; - and imera-plus European contracts testifying the excellent scientific value of all INRIM Division; - the cooperation of all INRIM Division with the Piemonte Regional Authority for the realization of some research poles (innovation Mechatronics and Advanced production systems poles) and with the bank Foundation (Compagnia di San Paolo) for the realization of a NanoFab Laboratory (with particular reference to Thermodynamic and Optic divisions). Nevertheless in the 2010 the number and the economic amount of industrial applied research contracts seem to be poor compared to the ones of base public research (European, National and Regional). In the opinion of Committee this results could be due to the severe economic crisis instead of the INRIM disability. Table 32 New (N) and Active (A) Contracts in the 2010 Div European National Regional Industrial Total A N A N A N A N A N E M O T Tot Spin-off and technical personnel detachment No spin-off activities have been carried out in and no procedures at moment are available at INRIM to promote spin-off activities. As regards the people mobility, in the last years personal detachments toward private companies are very poor. On the contrary the ability of both moving INRIM researchers and receiving foreign researchers from other NMI is very interesting. Page 46 of 80

47 5.2 Dissemination of knowledge and competence in the society and scientific community As regards the scientific knowledge dissemination, the INRIM Institute pursues such aim with several activities: i) participation in the Standardization, Scientific and Technical Committees; ii) education and training; iii) diffusion of competences to the community (scientific or not); iv) giving support to legal, health and environmental metrology. Some details related to the first three activities are given in section INRIM has also signed 27 framework agreements with other national and international institutes and universities. In addition to various agreements for internships, training courses and doctoral programs, in 2010 INRIM defined the following new collaboration agreements (3 international and 4 national ones): - Instituto Nacional de Metrologia, Normalização e Qualidade Industrial (INMETRO) of Rio de Janeiro: Memorandum of Understanding for scientific and technological collaboration in the field of metrology; - Politecnico di Milano Regional Pole of Como: Collaboration agreement in the fields of scientific research and professional training in the sector of activity concerning the growth and characterisation of advanced materials; - Regional Office of Education for Piedmont (USR) and Italian Association Electrical and Electronic Measurements Group (GMEE) Milan: Memorandum of Understanding regarding theoretical and practical aspects of training in metrology; - University of Craiova (Romania): scientific collaboration agreement in the field of metrology with special regard to the characterisation of the materials of the cultural heritage; - Institute of Laser Physics, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences: scientific collaboration agreement in laser physics and metrology; - Officine Meccaniche BBM S.p.A. of Rossano Veneto: scientific and technological collaboration agreement for the construction of a new type of multicomponent dynamometer; - Department of Biomedical Sciences and Human Oncology of the Medical School of the University of Turin: collaboration agreement in the areas relating to the development of new systems and materials for applications in the biomedical sciences, orthodontics and gnatology; - PFRAME s.r.l. of Montecompatri (RM): collaboration agreement for the construction of a mobile laboratory for the characterisation of street lighting systems Education and Training. Training constitutes an integral part of the activities of INRIM, as it appears from INRIM Annual Report. It is also noteworthy that education and training is one of key elements of INRIM s vision. The very fruitful relations with different Polytechnic and University (e.g. the Politecnico di Torino e Milano, Università di Page 47 of 80

48 Torino, Roma La Sapienza, Napoli Federico II, Pisa, Cassino, etc.) together with dedication grants for thesis work at INRIM ensures a high concentration of graduate work at INRIM. As shown in Table 33, in 2010, 16 first level degree theses, 15 master degree theses and 10 PhD thesis have been discussed. Table 33 Knowledge transfer/ training Description Three-year PhD programmes activated during the year Dissertations completed during the year (PhD) Dissertations completed during the year (Level 2) Dissertations completed during the year (Level 1) Foreign researchers at INRIM (man-months) ,5 INRIM researchers abroad (man-months) ,5 INRIM seminars by internal experts INRIM seminars by external experts Also training in all its facets is part of INRIM activities. Courses for industrial technicians and teachers, workshops and seminars, summers schools that are organized in collaboration with other bodies, indicate the substantial effort that INRIM puts intro training. In 2010 a large number of lessons have been held by lecturers in Universities (about 782 hours in graduate courses are made with INRIM participation) and cultural associations and third level courses. Also, IN- RIM widely participated to activity of several bodies and associations involved in knowledge diffusion and/or education activities (e.g: AICQ, ANCQ, CMM Club Italia, EMIT-LAS, Istituto Tagliacarne, ecc.) It is also interesting to notice cultural events assimilated by INRIM Institute to technical training activities. To such purpose several seminars within internal and external professional courses have been held. A further activity is represented by the international mobility, with 13 foreign researchers guests nearby the INRIM in 2010 and 8 INRIM researchers guests nearby other foreign metrology institutes Dissemination of competence to the scientific community and civil society Among the expected diffusion activities, particularly interesting are the numerous cultural activities proposed by INRIM, such as: V Meeting of the International Committee on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (18-22October 2010), organized in cooperation with ONU International Training Centre (ITC ILO) and with ONU delegates visit at INRIM laboratories (20 October 2010); guided tours (organized in the Settimana della Cultura Scientifica e Tecnologica promoted by MIUR) and multimedial aids for the high school students ( Crescere in città, promoted by Città di Torino); Page 48 of 80

49 11 information conferences the public events for the diffusion of scientific topics, such as Il tempo della scienza (also available at the web address a special number as Guest Editor on Int. J. of Thermophys review; the international workshop on New Kelvin Dissemination organized nearby NPL; scientific conferences and seminars held at INRIM by both internal scholars and external institutions; Furthermore, the organization and the participation in several scientific congresses and workshops are also notable: InTerSeC 20 Riduzione degli effetti termici nelle misure dimensionali (13 aprile 2010) Affidabilità & Tecnologie, (14-15 aprile 2010) V Workshop ad memoriam of Carlo Novero Advances in Foundations of Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Information with atoms and photons (24-28 maggio 2010) Euroscience Open Forum (ESOF) (2-7 luglio 2010): VI Nanoforum (16-17 giugno 2010) Workshop Le politiche regionali su ricerca e innovazione (23 marzo 2010) Workshop Digitalizzazione dei Beni Archivistici e Librari: duplicazione, conoscenza, conservazione (17 giugno 2010); Workshop News in Foundations of Quantum Mechanics (2 luglio); Workshop The state of the art of Quantum Mechanics: basics and applications (3 luglio); Workshop New definitions in the International System of Units (SI) and the development of European metrology (6 luglio); Workshop Science in the city: Inside the INRIM Quantum Labs (2-7 luglio); Workshop Nanotrace presso CMI (Brno- Rep. Ceca), ottobre 2010; Workshop Optical clocks: a new frontier in high accuracy metrology (1-3 dicembre 2010). Between the dissemination activities the NTP (a free downloading software to synchronize and calibrate the PC clock), PowerField Software (a software to exactly calculate magnetic induction and magnetic field), meteo (a software to download meteorological traceable data) are a very interesting and appreciable tools; in the Committee s opinion such activities can improve the diffusion of INRIM brand in the society and the culture of traceability Support for legal, health and environmental metrology. In legal, health and environment fields the society needs correct procedure measurement and reliable calibration facilities. Then INRIM provides some tasks regulated by law, in fact in most of these areas the INRIM is the authority named to measurement traceability. INRIM drew up a formal agreement with Page 49 of 80

50 National Research bodies for health ISS (National Health Institute) and for environment ISPRA (National Institute for the Protection of the Environment Research) ex APAT. Furthermore, the INRIM cooperates with MiSE (Economic Development Ministry) to make available measuring techniques and procedures for both the protection of the consumers in commercial exchange and the protection of the population health and of the environment. In 2010 the INRIM has developed research projects, measurement procedures and specific traceability of measuring instruments in the fields of: Legal metrology: in this field INRIM cooperates continuously with: i) MISE Ministry for developing standards and laws in legal metrology; ii) legal metrological services of CCIAA for standard calibration activities; iii) Tagliacarne Institute for personal training in legal metrological field; Health and environmental metrology (in cooperation with University of Turin, ISS and ISPRA): in such field the INRIM Institute has carried out research activities aimed to the improvement of the measurement equipment and techniques, test campaigns for energy and environmental measurements and realization of standards for traceability (e.g. traceability of ozone measurements). In particular in medical and bioscience fields the high intensity ultrasound applications, the characterization of acoustical material and systems, the Cellular Biology Laboratory, the Medical Ultrasound Center (CRUM) and Bio-metrology Laboratory are very interesting and promising. 5.3 Conclusive considerations about dissemination of knowledge and improvement proposals The activities of knowledge diffusion towards community and academy can be considered excellent for both quality and quantity. The visibility and proposal capability at international level of INRIM Institute in National and International activities testifies its interaction ability in several metrological sectors with the community and the scientific academy. In the last years significant efforts have reduced the gap between the health, legal and environment metrology and the scientific metrology in terms of national metrological traceability. However the INRIM Institute should still improve the knowledge dissemination activities about International System of Units also for such quantities. Even though it has been evidenced a lack of a detailed program aimed to the individuation of the chemical and physical quantities (as suggested in previous Evaluation Reports ), in the last years significant efforts have reduced the gap between the legal, health and environment metrology and the scientific metrology in terms of national metrological traceability. However the INRIM Institute should still improve the knowledge dissemination activities about International System of Units also for such quantities. As regards the knowledge dissemination to the companies, the critical aspects underlined in the previous evaluation reports are confirmed in So we can affirm that the industrial knowledge transfer activity does not appear to represent a priority activity at INRIM. Such activity depends on the researchers sensitivity instead of being the consequence of the Institute strategy. As a consequence, there is a gap between capabilities and results, in terms of patents and spin-off. Page 50 of 80

51 In order to reduce this gap it is necessary to set up a policy and to take measures able to boost patent activity and application of research activity. Then the INRIM should develop a range of programs: i) to manage a specific consultancies programs toward industry and stakeholders; ii) to plan knowledge transfer into all research programs to ensure the right impact; iii) to improve the access to INRIM's expertise, laboratories and equipment; iv) to maintain a Knowledge Transfer Networks; v) to improve the knowledge transfer by means the new media communication; vi) to diffuse the INRIM image with specific publicity action to better diffuse the INRIM brand in the industry and not only in the scientific community; vii) to evaluate all research results could in terms of patentability or know-how for innovation; viii) to evaluate the industrial knowledge transfers effectiveness (paying particular attention to the patents); ix) to establish a researcher s career progression and a personal appraisal in order to clarify the evaluation of knowledge dissemination activities. As concluding remarks, the challenges with respect to INRIM s manifold dissemination activities still appears to be: 1. to maintain the excellence in the knowledge diffusion results toward the community and the academy, widening the traditional metrology also to the new chemical, health and environmental fields; 2. to not interpret the modification introduced by ACCREDIA in the organization of dissemination activities as a reduced rule in metrological dissemination and to continue the investments in the health, energy and environmental know-how and apparatus ; 3. to improve the industrial diffusion activities planning in term of: specific consultancies of industry and stakeholders; programs to ensure the right impact; a full access to INRIM's expertise, laboratories and equipments; the use of a specific network; 4. to establish a systematic overview of its dissemination of knowledge an results and to bring them in line with the mission of the institute. This could be formulated in a policy document, traduced in a strategic actions with appropriate human and economic resources and, finally, periodically verified; 5. to implement a specific staff and office for the coordination and the promotion of the industrial knowledge dissemination; this activity could be also carried out in cooperation directly with industrial stakeholder or with a transfer technology specialist. Page 51 of 80

52 6 Economy and Resources 6.1 Introduction and rationale Institute-wide economic figures are reported from the Annual report , 2, and compared as usual with similar figures of two European Metrology Institutes, the Danish Fundamental Metrology (DFM), 3 much smaller than INRIM (DFM staff is about 10% of INRIM), and, the German PTB, 4 larger than INRIM (INRIM staff is less than 15% of PTB), and for the first time with an extra- European institute, the Korean Research Institute of Standard and Science (KRISS) 5, A few budget figures are also available from BSMI (the Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection of the Republic of China, Taiwan 6 ). No financial data are provided by the National Metrology Institute of Japan 7, and the web-published financial reports of the Bureau of Indian Standards halt at Having the Institute reached the fourth year of normal operation, the quadrennial trend 2007 to 2010 is reported and analyzed. After a significant improvement both in self-funding and investments in the first three years of normal operation (2007 to 2009) - the guidelines to INRIM management that were traced out in the past evaluations - the year 2010 under assessment shows variegate results mixing decline and development, that combine into a decrease of the total income with respect to the years 2008 and Worse, the income when discounted by the compound national inflation rate goes back to the 2007 value. In the Institute Annual Report, reasons of the 2010 decline are referred to the decline of the revenues from services to the private sector, because of the economic crisis and changes in the national accreditation organization. The Committee suggests to investigate for more profound reasons, as the decline of the service revenues in 2010 is lower than that occurred in As a matter of fact, considering the four key economic indices already monitored in the past (INRIM self-funding, investments, research self-funding, research grants and scholarships) and reported in Figure 11, all of them show a decline with respect to year 2009 and settle close to 2008 values, if no discount is applied. The only increasing index is the personnel cost, but in the face of a significant reduction (-7%) of research grants and scholarships. From a favorable standpoint, 2009 results may be considered as rather peculiar with respect to 2008 and 2010, mainly because of the exceptional funding from the Regione Piemonte, and of the higher level of investments (65% more than 2008). Actually the decline of regional funding has been partly compensated by 1 INRIM, 2010 Final Report, approved y by the Board of Directors (in English), 29 April INRIM, Relazione consuntiva 2010, approvata dal Consiglio di Amministrazione, 29 aprile 2011; Relazione illustrativa del rendiconto dell esercizio finanziario 2010 (in Italian), and personnal comunication by Mrs. D. Zornio. 3 DFM, Annual report 2010 (in Danish), and personal communication by K. Carneiro. 4 PTB, Zahlen und Fakten (Figures and facts), 2010, part of the 2010 Annual Report. 5 KRISS, Fact Sheet, available at 6 MOEA, 2010 Annual report of BSMI, ISSN National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), National Metrology Institute of Japan,available at jp/ 8 Bureau of Indian Standards, Annual Report Page 52 of 80

53 EC (European Community) funding, showing Institute potentialities in a Europewide competition. For what concerns investment reduction (close to 2008), as well as grants and scholarships (briefly fellowships, lower than 2008), no explanation can be evinced from the Annual Report. A question should therefore be raised: are such reductions correlated with current and expected restrictions of the central regulatory body? In summary, the triennial positive trend 2007 to 2009, that remains positive also when discounted by national inflation rate, looks, hopefully momentarily, halted. Comparison with the usual benchmark Institutes, namely DFM and PTB, but also with extra-european Institutes (KRISS and BSMI), shows a similar, though less severe stagnation, indicating the world-wide economic crisis as a common conjuncture. However a higher level of investments and staff makes the two Asian institutes (and particularly the Korean one) standing out of the European standard, and indicate the moment that such countries still under impetuous growth attribute to metrology and to applied science in general. Current decline of the economic results also emerges from the trend of the income-per-staff. The index should indicate the Institute capability of transferring knowledge and technology that were developed as pure institutional and basic research, into applied research and commercial activities. As such, INRIM still looks more aggressive than PTB and less than DFM. The gap toward DFM that in 2009 entered the uncertainty threshold typical of such benchmarks has become coherently wider in Overall assessment and benchmark Key economic figures Table 34 compares 2010 INRIM income and expenses to DFM, PTB and KRISS figures. Operating result, if positive (surplus), is treated as expenditure in the order of the next financial year. If negative (deficit) is treated as an item of the current year income. As such, total income and expenditures come to balance. PTB income has been forcedly estimated as it is missing in the 2010 report, in the form which is available from the Internet. The last rows of Table 34 give details of the origin of the operating result as a difference between surpluses; surplus practice has been explained in 2007 evaluation document and will not be repeated here. For what concerns expenditures, INRIM and PTB percentages look very similar, except for the investments that have been greatly reduced from the 19% of 2009 to the 11% of As a comparison, PTB kept the investment level around the 20% level (23% in 2009, 21 % in 2010). It should be reminded that investments were a key issue raised in the past evaluations. It must be remarked that INRIM management withstood the income shortage in 2009 at the price of reducing the accumulated surplus. As a result, investments were kept at the same level as in Although not explicitly indicated in the Annual report, it looks credible that the same maneuver was deemed not feasible in 2010, in the presence of a further income shortage and more specifically because of the reduction (>15%) of the institutional funding which was expected for the current To this end, the difference to be carried to the next year (2011) was raised from 3,20 to 4,16 MEuros as it is mentioned in the Annual Report. Page 53 of 80

54 Table 34 Key economic figures for INRIM,DFM, PTB and KRISS*** 2010 No. Item INRIM DFM PTB KRISS Values are M Value % Value % Value % Value % 0 Income 0.1 Institutional funding + 21, , ,75 * Research contracts /projects 2,15 8 0, ,4 7 17, Income from commercial activities (++) 2, , , ,1 14 Interests 0, Deficit 0, Total 26, , , , Non institutional income 5, , , Expenses 1.1 Personnel costs , , , Operating costs , , Investments/depreciation 2, , , Direct costs NA 0, Operating result (surplus) 0,64 3 0,07 2 NA NA 1.4 Total 26, , , , Accumulated surplus 3.1 Carried over from previous year 3,52 1,72 NA NA 3.2 Surplus (deficit) of the year ,07 NA NA 3.3 Carried over to the next year ** 4,16 1,79 NA NA Page 54 of 80

55 Notes to Table 34 (+) It consists of Ministry (MIUR) funding, referring to permanent and temporary staff, as well as grants and scholarships. (++)It includes income from calibration and test activities, as well as other receipts (altre entrate) (*) Estimated as it is missing in the 2010 PTB report. ( ) They include both permanent and temporary staff. (**) The difference to be carried forward to the next year, 4759 keuros, as in Table 17 of the Annual Report, has been cleared of the passive residuals reduction (598 keuros) as it was done in the past (it was confirmed by Mrs. D. Zornio). The latter amount will contribute to the difference carried from the previous year in the 2011 balance. (***) Some caution must be paid toward KRISS figures, since no balance is provided (only the budget of expenditures). Moreover, a rather relevant item of the budget (57%), referred to as R&D, is not clear if be referred to investments or also to other costs. The former interpretation looks the more acceptable, since the reported personnel costs are proportional to INRIM ones. Remarks to Table 34 are the following: 1) Differently than 2009, INRIM rate of non-institutional income (row 0.5) diverges from DFM (19% versus 28 %, 22% versus 26% in 2009), and becomes closer to the 15% of PTB. As already said changes in the accreditation organization and the economic conjuncture may explain the significant reduction both in absolute and relative values. The positive, undeniable fact, is the capability of INRIM to keep its quota around 20%, which is mainly due to a remarkable increase of European competitive funds. In the absence of a specific study/plan/rule indicating which should be the expected self-funding quota for a Metrology Institute like INRIM, values close to 20% might be retained adequate. Notwithstanding, INRIM management is invited to devise appropriate steps to keep the 2010 decline as a transient phenomenon. To this point, a brief explanation and comparison of the KRISS funding strategy may be of interest: 1) The reported institutional funding (55,5 MEuros) is the sum of personnel costs and of a basic research funding contributed by government. 2) The contract/project funding (17,4 MEuros) is actually contracted with several ministries of the government; a funding strategy substantially different from the Italian position divided between two extremes, European and regional funding! It is common sense that sound and monitored contracts with nation-wide bodies should better address country needs and objectives Economic trend Having reached the fourth year of normal operation in 2010, a quadrennial trend for INRIM is reported in Table 35, Figure 9 and Figure 10. Institute wide economic figures were not available in 2006 since they were separately reported for IEN and IMGC. They employ the same items and data of Table 35 has been enriched with the compound inflation rate from 2008 to 2010 and the corresponding discounted income. Page 55 of 80

56 Table 35 INRIM, PTB, DFM, KRISS and BSMI economic trend from 2007 to 2010 No. Values are in M INRIM (Italy) Country population 60 million units 0 Income 0.1 Institutional funding 19,95 20,5 21,1 21, Research contracts/projects 1,4 4,25 (2,38+) 2,85 2, Income from commercial 3,4 3,65 3, activities (calibration, test, accreditation, others) 0.4 Total INRIM 24,76 28,4 (26,5+) Compound inflation 1 1,035 1,043 1,06 rate (Italy) 0.6 Discounted funding 19,95 19,8 20,2 19,9 0.7 Discounted self-funding ,6 (5.8+) Discounted total 24,76 27,4(25,6+) 25,9 24,7 (2007 as a basis) 1 Expenses (balanced) 1.1 Personnel costs 15,29 14,9 15,75 16, Other operating costs 6,05 6,9 7, Investments/depreciation 2,24 5,6 5,35 2, Operating result 1,18 1-1,4 0, Total INRIM (balanced) 24,76 28, , Total INRIM (actual 23,58 27,4 28,4 25,56 expenses) Table 35 continues Page 56 of 80

57 Table 35 continued DFM Country population 5,5 million units No. Values are in M Total DFM (balanced) 2,22 2,30 2,51 2, Compounded inflation rate 1 1,036 1,047 1,07 (Denmark) 1.62 Discounted total (2007 as a 2,22 2,22 2,40 2,41 basis) PTB (Germany) Country population 82million units No. Values are in M Total PTB (balanced) 132,9 141, , Compounded inflation rate 1 1,028 1,03 1,042 (Germany) 1.72 Discounted total (2007 as a 132,9 137, ,9 basis) KRISS (South Korea,++) Country population 49 Million units No. Values are in M Total KRISS (expenditures) NA NA 83,2 85, Compounded inflation rate 1 1,047 1,076 1,108 (2007 basis) 1.82 Discounted total (2007 as a NA NA 77,3 76,7 basis) BSMI (Taiwan) Country opulation 23 Million units No. Values are in M Total BSMI (expenditures) 54, ,6 61, Compounded inflation rate 1 1,035 1,031 1,042 (2007 basis) 1.92 Discounted total (2007 as a 54,5 56, ,0 basis) Page 57 of 80

58 Value [MEuro] MEuros Notes to Table 35 (+) without the special funding of 1.87 MEuros (++) KRISS data in USD (1 USD =1.3 Euros, January 2012) (+++) BSMI data in Taiwan dollars (1 Taiwan dollar=0.25 Euros, January 2012) Figure 9 shows the quadrennial trend of the discounted income (scaled to obtain comparable figures). The arrows indicating PTB (red) and INRIM (blue) peaks correspond to special awarded funds (the PTB award is a conjecture). None of the incomes (except the INRIM one) comes back to the 2007 level. All institutes show a more or less pronounced decrease of the discounted 2010 income, as the latter can be referred to a worldwide economic crisis. INRIM, DFM,PTB, KRISS, BSMI income, discounted INRIM PTB/5 DFM*10 KRISS/2.5 BSMI/ date Figure 9 Quadrennial trend of INRIM, DFM, PTB, KRISS (only biennial) and BSMI discounted income Year DFM - income x10 INRIM - income PTB - income/5 INRIM - actual expenses Figure 10 Quadrennial gross (undiscounted) trend of INRIM, DFM and PTB income versus INRIM actual expenses. Page 58 of 80

59 Remarks to Table 35, Figure 9 and Figure 10 are the following: 1) The economic trends of INRIM, DFM, PTB, KRISS and BSMI during the quadrennial 2007 to 2010 show similarities and discrepancies. Subtracting the special funding of 1,87 MEuros awarded in 2008, INRIM income steadily increased from 2007 to 2009, also on a discounted basis, which positive result was already remarked in the past evaluation report, and interpreted as a solid basis for future achievements. Unfortunately the positive trend halted in the 2010, and worse, the discounted income has come back to 2007 values. The same cannot be said of DFM,PTB and BSMI (KRISS income for the 2007 and 2008 years is not available). Gross and net DFM income has not diminished. A more complex investigation should be applied to PTB income. In the last evaluation report a sharp increase of the PTB budget from 2008 to 2009 was noticed, that could not be referred to self-funding. As such, it was interpreted as the result of a special institutional funding, in some way similar to the special funding received by INRIM in Such an interpretation, in the absence of explicit data, seems credible as the PTB 2010 gross income has declined with respect to 2009, but the net income remains significantly higher than 2007 and 2008, unlike INRIM. The KRISS discounted income has remained pretty steady from 2009 to The BSMI trend follows the PTB profile in shape. Of course, the five institutes are rather different and operate within different contexts: DFM is an aggressive private company, whereas PTB is a solid and important German institution supported and cared by regulatory bodies, as well as KRISS and BSMI. INRIM stays in the middle and the past triennial trend showed potentialities for supplying shortage of institutional funding. The hope is that the 2010 decline could be recovered during current and next years. 2) Analysis of the different items shows institutional funding has remained rather constant (if cleared of the inflation rate), whereas self-funding significantly increased during 2008 and 2009, and during 2010 has declined to the 2007 values (if cleared of the inflation rate). The four items contributing to selffunding will be detailed in Table 36. What must be remarked as in the past evaluation report is the continuous decrease of the commercial income (calibration and test), though not so high as in the 2009, partly due to economic conjuncture and to changes of accreditation bodies. The Evaluation Committee again expresses the wish that the commercial shortage should be a key concern of INRIM management, as it was considered a solid Institute asset Self-funding Better insight may be obtained splitting self-funding (in Table 36 and Figure 11) into different items. To better assess the quadrennial trend, the special funding of 1,87 Meuros awarded to INRIM in 2008, has been taken as a separate item. Notice, however, the latter should be included in the self-funding total, in the case the INRIM economic trend would be projected over longer terms. Page 59 of 80

60 INRIM self-funding, personnel costs and investments (de- Table 36 tails) No. Values in k Self-funding source (research) 0.1 Regione Piemonte European Community Other public bodies Research contracts Total - research Discounted total research Calibration, test and accreditation Others Total self funding-commercial Discounted commercial Total self funding Discounted self-funding Self /institutional funding [%] special funding NA 1870 NA NA 8 Personnel costs 8.1 Permanent/temporary personnel travel 8.2 Research grants, scholarships Total Discounted Personnel costs Investments (without the 2008 special funding) 10.1 Discounted investments Compound inflation rate (Italy) 1 1,035 1,043 1,06 Page 60 of 80

61 Value [MEuro] keuros Discounted figures Investments (without special funding) Self-funding Fellowships date Figure 11 Trend of INRIM discounted self-funding, investment (without special funding) and fellowships INRIM self-funding [ke] (without special funding) Personnel costs (total) /2 [ke] Research grants & scholarships Investments (wthout special funding) [ke] Year Figure 12 Trend of INRIM gross (not discounted) self-funding, investment and personnel costs. Remarks to Table 36 are the following: 1) In the quadriennial 2007 to 2010 INRIM management made a great effort of investment in agreement with the Evaluation Committee suggestions. The acme occurred in 2009 when the investment rate of PTB was paired (about 20% of Page 61 of 80

62 the total expenses). The positive trend underwent a stoppage in 2010, mainly because of declining self-funding and the need to withstand expected reduction of institutional funding. Notwithstanding such difficulties the 2010 discounted investments were kept close to the 2008 value, thus higher than 2007, which must be recognized as a valuable policy. Although it should be unwise to judge investment results within the same quadriennial term, nevertheless the significant increase of the European funds in 2010 (+150% of the triennial average 2007 to 2009) could have been favored by such a policy. Remarkably, European funds allowed INRIM self-funding to stay close to 20% of the income, to partly compensate a net reduction of regional funding, and investments to remain at the 2008 level. 2) A second leverage in the hands of INRIM management is the ensemble of research grants and scholarships (briefly fellowships). The 2007 to 2008 remarkable increase (+50%) did not repeat both in 2009 and in 2010, although the 2010 figure is still higher than The picture looks at first sight aggravated by the INRIM labour being substantially frozen both in terms of man power and of costs. While the policy of a frozen labour is imposed by sluggish national regulations, the parallel decline of research grants and scholarships looks unclear, or at least not explicitly mentioned in the Annual Report. Actually the total number of fellowships and scholarships in 2010 differs from 2009 just by one unit, and the number of Ph.D. students has increased from 23 to 29. In summary, the flexible leverage of fellowships and scholarships look intact, corresponding to more than 10% of the staff (Ph. D. students have been excluded). A comparison with PTB (and with the other Institutes) is not immediate, as their report distinguishes between trainees and temporary staff. 3) Increase of industrial contracts (+60%) in 2010, with respect to 2007 and 2008, though inferior than in 2009 (-25%) demonstrates that INRIM potentialities in the knowledge transfer remain significant also in the midst of a severe economic crisis. Repeating a remark from the past assessment, the subject would deserve a deeper analysis; for the present, one may wish INRIM will be capable of staying at the same average level of 2009 and 2010 in the future (around 850 keuros). 4) Last but not least, the sharp increase of the European research projects further corroborate the assessment of INRIM potentialities and flexibility, as it was capable of compensating the drastic reduction of the regional funding Income-per-staff index Table 37 reports the income-per-staff index as derived from Table 34 and the permanent/temporary staff amount. Page 62 of 80

63 Table 37 Key economic indices for INRIM, DFM, PTB, KRISS and BSMI No. Item INRIM 2007 INRIM 2008 INRIM 2009 INRIM 2010 DFM 2010 PTB 2010 KRISS 2010 BSMI Total personnel (+) Key indices [ke/staff unit] 1.1 Total income per staff Project income per ,4 22, NA staff (without the 2008 special funding) 1.3 Commercial income , ,5 NA per staff (+) Permanent and temporary staff (technical ad administrative) Remarks to Table 37 are the following: 1) During four years from 2007 to 2010, the project income per staff has approached the commercial income per staff, although the former underwent a 20% reduction with respect to As reported in the past evaluation, this should be kept as a remarkable result, since income from calibration and test was historically one of the most solid INRIM assets, comparable if not better to other worldwide metrology institutes. Though the above balance is partly due to a reduction of calibration and test income in 2009 and 2010 (a subject already treated), it shows INRIM quick and effective effort in diversifying self-funding sources and, more significant, in shortening the path from basic to applied research. 2) The remark of the past evaluation about the INRIM capability of approaching the performance of a small and aggressive institute as DFM, cannot be repeated this year because of reduction in the project income per staff. Besides the wish this path could be tracked again, the Committee iterates INRIM to address a pair of policies: a) to reinforce nationwide knowledge transfer, becoming the proposer of systematic ventures with industry consortia; b) to reinforce/improve its position Europe-wide, through a better blend of regional and European projects; a hint would be to take advantage of the regional funds to the purpose. No feedback seems available to judge about the former hint. The latter policy was put in action as the European funds awarded to INRIM in 2010 prove. 3) The income per staff of the Korean and Taiwan Institutes look as outlier with respect to European figures as the latter settle around 100 keuros/staff. The Korean index doubles (!) the European average index. KRISS has a staff which is double than INRIM (South Korea population is inferior to Italy), and income which is close to be four time! It looks a monster compared to the European standard ( monster comes from latin monstrum, from monere, to warn): KRISS is just a metrology institute with some science branches as INRIM and PTB. Page 63 of 80

64 Should it be a warning to Italy and Europe! The incredibly numerous staff (>900) of the Taiwan institute may be related to inspection activities of the institute (Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection is the brand name). Whichever be the reason, it confirms intense concern and devotion to metrology of such countries Metrology versus gross domestic product (GDP) This section being not mandatory tries to provide some indication of the relation between income of metrology institutes and the (nominal) gross domestic product (also income, the market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period, converted using the national currency rates). No model being available to the author for relating metrology income to GDP, a comparison is provided been different countries, the same as of the benchmark Institutes. No claim is done about soundness and significance of the comparison. They are just figures offered to meditation. The proposed economic indices are the following. 1) The ratio between metrology income and gross domestic product (GDP) for the 2010 year. 2) The ratio between the income per staff of each metrology institute and the GDP per capita, for the 2010 year. 3) The cumulated domestic growth from 1990 to Of course the last figure (growth) should have no relation with the former ones: it just shows a recent GDP trend. Table 38 Metrology institute income versus gross domestic product (2010) No. Item INRIM (Ita-DFly) (Den- PTB (Ger-KRISmany) (Den- mark) (South rea) BSMI (Tai- Ko-wan) 0 GDP [GEuros=10 9 Euros], from International Monetary Fund GDP per capita [keuros] Metrology institute 0,017 0,011 0,063 0,109 0,18 income [MEuros]/GDP [GEuros] 2 Cumulated domestic growth [%] 3 Income per staff/ GDP 4,4 3, ,4 4,8 per capita Two are the most significant figures emerging from Table 38. Page 64 of 80

65 1) The extremely low percentage of GDP devoted to Italian metrology, one third of Germany and one fifth of South Korea (the monster ), should raise a warning! Only Denmark is lower, but DFM is a not a National body, but a private Institute. 2) Fortunately things occur to become less dramatic, and at first sight favorable to Italy by comparing the income per staff to the GDP per capita. Italy ratio is higher than Denmark and Germany (but always lower than South Korea) and at the same level of Taiwan (but Taiwan Institute is also in charge of inspection tasks!). The fact is that Italian GPD has increased of about 25% in more than 15 years, whereas South Korea increased of 135%. Germany GDP increase is similar to Italy, but it could be partly explained with East Germany recovery. 6.3 Conclusions and recommendations INRIM potentialities emerge from difficult conditions. As a matter of fact, INRIM looks to have wisely navigated in the past years among different rocks: 1) regional funding drop was partly recovered by competitive European funding, 2) calibration, test and accreditation income drop was recovered by research contracts, but unfortunately the latter dropped in 2010, 3) the frozen staff (net personnel cost steady from 2007 on) was complemented with fellowships and scholarships, but unfortunately the latter dropped in The same conclusions as in 2008 and 2009 reports can be iterated: overall economic analysis and benchmark are ranking INRIM as a rather effective research organization for what concerns both self-funding and investments, a pair of concerns that were in the past deemed being weak by Committee. Management should make any effort to keep and improve the present rank that can be defined by averaging 2009 and 2010 performance. Special attention should be deserved to foster INRIM potentialities, to increase investments and fellowships, both declined in 2010, as they shall guarantee the future, to recover accreditation revenues by reinforcing industry cooperation, to keep a steady position in the Europe wide funding. The Committee is aware of the difficulties in pursuing these objectives, as they are mainly imposed by the environment, but the self-funding shift to European projects indicates INRIM potentialities and flexibility. For the first time, a limited but significant comparison has been made with extra-european metrology Institutes, specifically South-Korean and Taiwan. The relevant financial data, though limited and affected by uncertainty, enlightens the strong attention and care devoted to metrology by such countries. Their steady growth in GDP and in know-how can be surely traced back to such policy. Figures of Table 34 seem pointing out a significant gap between Italy (and also Europe) and those countries. Nothing comes from nothing; more than 50% of the Korean Institute income is investment! Last but not least, metrology should be kept as a sensible observatory of technology attention and advancement, because of being pervasive and diffusive in every activity and moment of life: think of health and legal metrology (see section 5.2.3) how they can support everyday life! Investment shortage and careless can only lead to a progressive know-how and wealth decrease, and worse in the midst of a technological circumstance full of opportunities! Page 65 of 80

66 7 Annexes 7.1 Material submitted to the Evaluation Committee A FINAL REPORT, Approved by the Board of Directors on 29 April 2011 B. INRIM TEN YEAR STRATEGY 28 July 2010 C. INRIM Total balance for 2010 D. INRIM publications Page 66 of 80

67 7.2 List of acronyms Acronym BIPM CC CEM CEN CI CIPM Explanation Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (Sèvres, France) Consultative Committee of the CIPM Centro Español de Metrologia Centre Européenne de Normalisation Citation Impact. Citations of a single paper, or a group of papers e.g. from an institution. CI is defined specifically, defined by year(s) of publication and of citation. International Committee for Weights and Measures (Metre Convention) CIPM-MRA Mutual Recognition Arrangement of the CIPM from 1999 CIVR Committee for the Evaluation of Research (Italy) CMC Calibration measurement capabilities (Entry in KCDB appendix C) DFM E EMRP ENEA-INMRI EURAMET FTE IEC IF imera INRIM ISO IUPAC JRP Danish Fundamental Metrology Ltd (Danish metrology institute) Electromagnetism division of INRIM European Metrology Research Programme Italian Designated Institute for Ionising Radiation European Association of Metrology Institutes Full Time Equivalent (corresponding to the workload of one full-time employed person) International Electrotechnical Committee Impact Factor of a scientific journal (average number of citations from an article in the journal) Implementing the Metrology European Research Area Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica International Standardization Organization International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry Joint Research Project of the EMRP KC Key Comparison (Entry in KCDB Appendix B) KCDB Key Comparison Database of the CIPM-MRA Page 67 of 80

68 KRISS LNE M METAS MIUR NMI NRC O PTB Korean Institute of Standards and Science Laboratoire National de Métrologie et d'essais Mechanics division of INRIM The Federal Office of Metrology Ministero dell'istruzione, dell'università e della Ricerca (Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research) National Metrology Institute National Research Council Optics division of INRIM Physikalisch Technische Bundesanstalt (German metrology institute) SC Supplementary Comparison (Entry in KCDB Appendix B) T VSL Thermodynamics division of INRIM Dutch Metrology Institute Page 68 of 80

69 7.3 Proposal for an approach to strategic management Recently, INRIM has been requested to take up a more strategic approach to management and it has produced a preliminary strategic document on its vision for Since the four preceding reports have suggested a number of strategic initiatives and actions, Evaluation Committee presents below its proposal of INRIM s strategic approach Hierarchy of elements in the strategy A strategy for a institution like INRIM has the purpose of building a bridge and laying out a path between the overall purpose, often referred to as the mission, to the daily activities, so that everything that goes on at INRIM is compliant and supports the mission by specific actions, and a balanced manner. However, strategic management has many aspects and may be formulated in numerous ways; the strategy is most often composed into a strategic plan, which has the following elements: The mission statement First and foremost, the strategy plan opens with a mission statement. This is an explicit statement containing the Raison d être what is implicet stated in the constitution of the institution. The long term vision It is commun practice to give a long term vision, that describes where INRIM should be placed in society within typically 10 to 20 years, given the uncertainty about the how society as a whole will develop. Sometimes one sets up different scenarios for the society and presents how INRIM will contribute to the wellbeing of society irrespective of the precise course of general developments. Sometimes the long term vision is placed as a appendix to the operational strategy plan that follows. The operational strategic vision The core element of the strategy plan is the operational vision. The vision states, traceable to the mission statement, which major achievements INRIM intends to execute during the strategic period. This is a period of 3-5 years often identical the multiannual budget period that most institutions work according to. It is important for the vision that the formulations of the vision are relevant for all groups of the institution s products, which in the context of the evaluation reports are Scientific Work, National Measurement Standards and Dissemination of Knowledge. Strategic actions In order to be operational as management tool, the strategy plan contains a complete set of actions that fulfil the vision. These actions must be formulated in sufficient detail, so that they can be executed in the proper time frame and with adequate use of available resources. These must be quantified both in terms of personal and financial resources. Strategic management tools The strategy plan serves a number of purposes such as Guiding the daily work in accordance with plans and budget and the interests of stakeholders. Page 69 of 80

70 Making it possible to change plans and directions, when required by circumstances. Executing continual backwards performance review where performance in terms of deliverables in accordance the mission and practical circumstances. Performing a critical post strategy evaluation of how the strategic period has elapsed, compared with the original expectations. In order for the strategy to be satisfying its several purposes, a number of administrative tools must be in place, such as: A financial management and reporting system; this appears to be largely in place. A human resource management system that makes it possible plan and execute the work according the strategy plan. Steps have been taken to set this up, and this is described in the section A reward system that puts the different kinds of work on an equal footing Allocation of human resources at INRIM Allocation of human resources is an important tool in modern management. Previous evaluation reports have made analyses and evaluations of the allocation, and in its 2009 annual report, INRIM has started to report allocation of resources according to the division of work in the evaluation reports. The results for 2010 are shown in Figure 13; and the reported development from are shown in Figure 14. The categorization of work in the INRIM s annual reports is as follows: INRIM R&D: This covers the scientific work, which is covered. This work is evaluated in Chapter 1, and it is referred to as institutional funding in Chapter 6. However, the enumeration of resources does not appear to be consistent between the divisions or from year to year, and it is therefore difficult to analyse the resource allocation for this category in detail. Contract R&D: This covers the scientific work, which is covered by specific contracts of any origin. This work is also evaluated in Chapter 1, and it is referred to as Research contracts/projects or self-funding in Chapter 6. The problem of inconsistency in the enumeration is the same as for INRIM R&D. NMI work: This is identical to what the evaluation report now refers to as National Measurement Standards and is by part of INRIMS s multiannual contract with the Ministry of Education, Universities and Research. It is evaluated in Chapter 4; and included in institutional funding in Chapter 6. The enumeration appears to be consistent between the divisions and over time. Other: This covers in part the specific work that is described in Chapter 5, and denoted classified as dissemination of knowledge. It contains two distinct kinds of work with separate sources of funding, namely Dissemination of know-how to the companies, which is evaluated in Chapter 5.1and covered in Chapter 6 by income from commercial sources, and secondly Dissemination of knowledge and competence in the so- Page 70 of 80

71 ciety and scientific community, which is evaluated in Chapter and covered in Chapter 6 by institutional funding. However, Other also seems to contain an ill-defined amount of miscellaneous work, and this makes it difficult to assess how much time is used at INRIM and its divisions to the important subject of dissemination of resources. Althoough the numbers have to be taken with a grain of salt, we list in Table 39 the resource allocation for the triennial period 2008 to INRIM R&D 48% 48% 38% PROJECT R&D 18% 19% 28% NMI WORK 30% 29% 28% OTHER 4% 4% 7% Table 39 Fractions of FTE resources dedicated to different activities for INRIM in 2008 to 2010 Page 71 of 80

72 Figure 13. Resource allocation for INRIM s four Divisions Electromagnetism (EM), Mass (M), Optics (O) and Thermodynamics (T). The classification is : INRIM R&D, Contract R&D, (National Measurement) Standards and Other activities. This classification is similar but not identical to the categorisations used in this evaluation report. Pa

73 Figure 14 Development between 2009 and 2010 of resources (FTE) for INRIM and its four divisions. Note the different scales used for INRIM and the divisions respectively The classification is : INRIM R&D, Contract R&D, (National Measurement) Standards and Other activities. This division is similar but not identical to the categorisations used in this evaluation report.