The Director of the BIPM, Professor Andrew Wallard, and Mr Wout van Bommel, the Chairman of the International Commission on Illumination (CIE), have signed a cooperation Agreement. The Agreement recognizes the responsibilities and roles of the BIPM and the CIE and emphasizes the need to consult together to ensure that data related to measurements of light, optical radiation, colour, optical properties of materials, and photobiological and photochemical quantities are based on units traceable to the International System of Units (SI). The Agreement also recognizes the importance of the international recognition and acceptance of measurement procedures for these quantities which can be provided through the Mutual Recognition Arrangement of the International Committee for Weights and Measures, the CIPM MRA.

Text of the BIPM-CIE Agreement (2 April 2007)

Both parties to the Agreement will be represented at meetings organized by the other party, especially those which relate to the liaison needed as a result of the CIPM's responsibility for the definition of the photometric units in the SI and the CIE's responsibility for the standardization of the action spectra of the human eye.

Professor Wallard and Mr van Bommel welcomed the signing of the Agreement as a formalization and recognition of the close working arrangements which have existed for many years and the importance of closer collaboration in this important field of metrology.

BIPM, 2 April 2007