Slovak Institute of Metrology

National Metrology Institution

The Slovak Institute of Metrology (SMU) as a body of state administration for the field of metrology fulfils the function of the national metrology institution of the Slovak Republic. The SMU is the contributory organisation established by the Slovak Office of Standards, Metrology and Testing (UNMS SR).

The primary mission of the Institute is stated in the unabridged Foundation Charter from January 1, 2001 issued on the basis of the Resolution No. 1/2001 of the President of the UNMS SR. The SMU provides the uniformity and correctness of measurement of physical and technical quantities by using the measurement standards, the verified and calibrated measuring instruments and certified reference materials respectively.

The SMU activities cover the following:

• competence of the body of state administration,
• scientific-research activities,
• normative activities,
• metrological services related to transfer of the unit of physical quantities and to a production of reference materials.

The SMU provides metrological services at the highest level in order to be a basis for validation of measurement quality at national and international levels. The SMU works on behalf of the support of permanent sustainable growth of society. The SMU provides obligatory tasks of Slovakia resulting from the EU membership, from memberships in international metrological organizations e. g. BIPM, CIPM,  OIML, EUROMET, COOMET and from the international agreements and contracts.

According to the Act No. 142/2000 Coll. on Metrology the SMU:

• works out the conception of metrology development, performs the research and development in the field of metrology, represents the Slovak Republic in international metrology organisations, provides tasks resulted from this membership and international recognition of national standards and certified reference materials,
• provides the maintenance and international comparison of national standards of units and their scales and in cooperation with the determined organisation and accredited calibration laboratories the SMU ensures the transfer their values to standards and other measuring instruments used in the economy,
• co-ordinates the process of national standards approval and certifies the reference materials,
• approves the legal measuring instruments types, verifies legal measuring instruments and performs official measurements,
• issues documents of competence in the field of metrology,
• assesses the fulfilment of professional assumptions of an applicant for authorisation according to the Law on Metrology,
• provides the creation of Slovak technical standards and regulations for metrology
• provides the PhD studies in the field of metrology.

The SMU implemented successfully the quality management system and on October 14, 2002 it gained the certificate of quality management system according to the ISO 9001: 2000 standard granted by the LGA InterCert, Nürnberg, Germany, as the certification body. On May 6, 2003 all the metrological centres of the SMU gained the certificates on accreditation for selected activities issued by the Slovak National Accreditation Service (SNAS) and except this the Centre of  Chemistry gained also the certificate issued by the Dutch national accreditation body - RvA. The SMU won the National Quality Award of the Slovak republic 2004.

The SMU consists of seven metrological centres:

Centre for Length, Time and Acoustic
deals with quantities: length, angle, flatness variations, roughness, time, time interval, time scale, frequency, rotation, speed, acoustic, ultrasound.

Centre for Mass and Pressure
deeals with quantities: mass, density, volume, viscosity, pressure, vacuum.

Centre for Flow-Rate
deals with quantities: flow-rate and volume of liquids, flow-rate and delivered volume of gases.

Centre for Electricity
deals with quantities: electrical voltage, resistance, current, capacity, power and energy, low-frequency and high-frequency quantities.

Centre for Ionizing Radiation
deals with quantities: dosimetry quantities of photon, neutron and electron radiation, radionuclides activity.

Centre for Chemistry
deals with quantities: amount of substance, pH, electrolytic conductivity, atmospheric humidity, mixture of gases, spectral transmittance, production and research of reference materials, refractometry

Centre for Thermometry, Photometry and Radiometry
deals with quantities: thermometry, heat, calorimetry, luminance, photometry and radiometry.

The SMU as the follower of former Czechoslovak Institute of Metrology has more than 36 years tradition in realization and maintenance of international recognized national measurement standards. The institute has at disposal the top technical equipment and experts in the particular measuring fields as mentioned above. It can contribute to the LOT 12 project as idicated in the chapter 5. "Fields of specialization" of this proposal.