International Comparison Exercises

NIST is responsible for providing mechanisms to enable the traceability and intercomparability of measurements. These mechanisms include the development of standard materials and reference data. Frequently, the assignment and certification of values in standard materials, and the validation of standard data, require the measurement assistance of outside laboratories. International comparison exercises are invaluable for assessing empirically measurement reproducibility within and across laboratories, for identifying methodological artifacts, and to define the state-of-the-art in particular measurement applications. The data from these exercises also can help NIST to place qualified bounds on uncertainty estimates during the value assignment process.

We have organized the following intercomparison exercises: