International Committee for Radionuclide Metrology (ICRM)

Collected images of radionuclide applications in health and envionment The International Committee for Radionuclide Metrology (ICRM) is an association of radionuclide metrology laboratories whose membership is composed of delegates of these laboratories together with other scientists (associate members) actively engaged in the study and applications of radioactivity. It explicitly aims at being an international forum for the dissemination of information on techniques, applications and data in the field of radionuclide metrology. This discipline provides a range of tools for tackling a wide variety of problems in numerous other fields, for both basic research and industrial applications. Radionuclide metrology continues to play an important role in the nuclear industry, supporting activities such as radionuclide production, nuclear medicine, measurement of environmental radioactivity and of radionuclides in food and drinking water, decommissioning of nuclear facilities, nuclear security and emergency preparedness, nuclear physics research, etc.


Plenary meetings of the ICRM are held biennially and have developed into scientific ICRM conferences, a successful instrument of communication among various specialists, truly encouraging international co-operation. The most recent in the series of ICRM meetings, the "23rd International Conference on Radionuclide Metrology and its Applications, ICRM 2023" was held from 27 to 31 March 2023 in Bucharest and hosted by the Horia Hulubei National Institute for Physics and Nuclear Engineering (IFIN-HH). The proceedings of ICRM 2023 have been published, and articles are available electronically on ScienceDirect. Additional papers have been published in the ICRM Technical Series (Issue 3) on Radionuclide Metrology, ISSN 2522-4328.

The next (24th) ICRM conference (ICRM 2025), organized by the Laboratoire National Henri Becquerel (LNE-LNHB) in Paris, France, will be held 19-22 May 2025 in Paris. The conference will include formal oral and poster presentations, along with working group meetings to offer the opportunity for scientific discussions. The contact persons of the local organizing committee are Mark Kellett (mark.kellett@cea.fr), Marie-Christine Lépy (marie-christine.lepy@cea.fr), and Sylvain Leblond (sylvain.leblond@cea.fr); more details are now available on the ICRM 2025 conference website (https://icrm2025.org/) and the dedicated email address for the meeting is ICRM2025@cea.fr.

Several ICRM working groups held interim meetings, virtually or in person, in 2024, which offered ample opportunity to discuss technical details of specific sub-fields of radionuclide metrology more informally. ICRM member institutions are strongly encouraged to give young researchers the possibility to participate in such interim meetings. For details, contact the Working Group coordinators.

The most recent ICRM - Low-Level Radioactivity Measurement Techniques Conference, ICRM-LLRMT 2022, was organized by the Low-Level Measurement Techniques Working Group (LLRMT) and hosted by the INFN-LNGS at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Assergi (Italy), 2-6 May 2022. The Conference Proceedings have been published in a special issue of Applied Radiation and Isotopes (https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/applied-radiation-and-isotopes/vol/194/suppl/C#article-36). The next Conference will be organized in 2026.

The ICRM Life Sciences Working Group (LS-WG) meeting on 8-9 April 2024 was hosted by the National Centre for Nuclear Research, Radioisotope Centre POLATOM in Warsaw, Poland. The Liquid Scintillation Counting Working group (LSC-WG) also met in Warsaw (on 11-12 April). A visit to the POLATOM laboratories took place on 10 April between the two working group meetings. The latest intermediate working meeting of the ICRM Gamma Spectrometry Working Group was held on April 18 -19, 2024 and was hosted by the CIEMAT (Madrid, Spain). The preliminary agenda is still available.

The ICRM Radionuclide Metrology Techniques (RMT) Working Group will host its interim meeting online 21 to 23 October 2024 (from 11:00 UTC to 15:00 UTC each day), with digital electronics discussed on 21 October, coincidence counting on 22 October, and gas counting and cryogenic calorimetry on 23 October. A detailed agenda will be distributed closer to the meeting. The meeting will be online only, via Teams. If you did not complete the survey after the first announcement, it can be completed at https://forms.gle/WbLEhxNEPRTsm2rp7. This is a great opportunity to discuss work-in-progress, get help with measurement challenges, or suggest new ideas for discussion. We welcome and encourage participation by colleagues who may not be able to otherwise travel to ICRM meetings.


Note: This information is made available through the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) facilities. However, the views expressed and the decisions reported do not necessarily connote NIST agreement with, or endorsement of them. Further, NIST does not endorse any commercial products that may be mentioned. Any comments that you provide by e-mail or by submitting an on-line form may be sent to members of the ICRM who may not follow the same NIST privacy practices.

Inquiries or comments: lisa.karam@nist.gov
Online: January 2001   -   Last update:       September 2024