Mutual Recognition Agreement

Upon signing the Mutual Recognition of National Measurement Standards and of Calibration Certificates Issued by National Metrology Institutes (MRA in short) on October 14, 1999, the following goals were set:

• To establish the degree of equivalence of the national primary standards maintained by the National Metrology Institutes;
• Participating institutes to recognize the validity of calibration and measurement certificates issued by other participating Metrology Institues;
• To offer Governments, as well as other parties, a solid technical basis for larger agreements connected to international relations, trade, and activities subject to regulations.

These objectives are met via the partecipation in international measurement comparisons (key-comparisons, in short) that allow to establish the degreee of equivalence between the different national primary standards and the establishment of an appropriate quality system.

The text of the MRA is available on the website of the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM) on the CIPM-MRA page. The text includes the list of national metrology institutes that are signatories to the arrangement (Appendix A) together with the key and supplementary comparisons data base and the Calibration and Measurement Capabilities, CMCs, Appendix C, mutually recognized by the Italian and foreign Primary Institutes.

For the mutual international recognition from all the Institutes that are signatories to the MRA, all national primary standards must be subjected, under the responsibility of the Italian Primary Metrology Institutes, to the obligations set by the MRA itself.

Information on the capability measurements of ENEA-INMRI that are internationally recognized (as well as the capabilities of the Primary Metrology Institutes of the other countries) can be obtained from the BIPM website, on the "BIPM key comparison database (KCDB)".