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Users and partners of IMEP

The Mutual Recognition Arrangement of the International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM-MRA) strives at achieving for all measurements the situation 'once measured somewhere, accepted everywhere'. JRC-Geel samples are made available to the BIPM Consultative Committee for Metrology in Chemistry (CCQM) to run some of their key comparisons or pilot studies for national metrology institutes worldwide. Many of theses institutes were asked by their governments to support chemical measurements by disseminating traceability to industry and society e.g. via interlaboratory comparisons, training, certified reference materials. Furthermore, JRC-Geel certified test samples have also been provided to EUROMET, the association of European metrology institutes.

The accreditation infrastructure is an important component of the European legislative framework regarding technical infrastructure. JRC-Geel has set up a collaboration agreement with Europena Accreditation (EA) to promote reliable chemical measurements and make use of JRC-Geel's IMEP interlaboratory comparisons to put in place the mechanisms needed to demonstrate the reliability and traceability of chemical measurements. EA provides JRC-Geel-certified test samples to accredited laboratories or to laboratories in the process of being accredited. In this sense JRC-Geel not only provides a tool for national accreditation bodies to assess the performance of their accredited laboratories, but also supports EA in monitoring the efficiency of the EA-MLA (Multilateral Agreement).

Community Reference Laboratories (CRLs) have been designated in 1991 by the Council of the European Union (EU). The CRLs, constantly monitor by means of interlaboratory comparisons the performance of the national reference laboratories for chemical analysis. Recently JRC-Geel established a collaboration in the scope of IMEP-20 (tuna fish) with the Istituto Superiore di Sanita - Community Reference Laboratory (ISS-CRL) for residues as support to the network of the national reference laboratories and their national networks of food monitoring laboratories. With this approach JRC-Geel and the ISS-CRL supports the EU Member States and Candidate Countries by ensuring confidence in their national food measurement infrastructure.

In 1951 the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) was established as a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) The Scientific Advisory Group for Precipitation Chemistry (SAG-PC) oversees the collection of precipitation chemistry data and provides policy direction to the Quality Assurance / Science Activity Center for the Americas (QA/SAC), which is tasked with implementing the Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) program of the WMO precipitation programme. JRC-Geel established a collaboration with the QA/SAC for WMO nominated laboratories in IMEP-15 (water).

JRC-Geel has also a close collaboration with the Committee for analytical quality of the International Federation for Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (C-AQ IFCC) resulting in the participation of over 1000 clinical laboratories in IMEP-17 (human serum).