Laboratoire National de Metrologie et d’Essai (LNE)

Laboratoire National de Metrologie et d’Essai (LNE)

Placed under the trusteeship of the Ministry overseeing Industry, LNE offers its expertise to all contributors to the French economy and moreover develops increasingly accurate measurement techniques.

Relying on an excellent scientific and technical skill set, LNE’s research efforts have formed the basis of multiple applications: calibration, testing, certification, etc. These advances serve to guide not only companies, in their strategies aimed at enhancing competitiveness and innovation, but also to steer Society at large towards more sustainable and secure development.

Since 1997, LNE’s public service mission has been defined by an objectives-based contract renewed every four years with the French government. This mission binds the State to a financial outlay in the form of annual subsidies that enable the laboratory to:

• assume its status of a national reference laboratory, dedicated to industry, in the field of metrology;
• pursue its scientific and technical development to anticipate new needs in the realm of measurements and testing related to technological progress, as well as latest expectations in the fields of safety, health, quality and environmental protection;
• provide technical assistance to public sector authorities and economic actors in the drafting of new regulations and standards at the international, European and national levels, as well as in the generation of new test methods and in market tracking.

In 2005, these public authorities assigned LNE to oversee metrology activities in France: LNE was thus renamed the National Metrology and Testing Laboratory and began working in association with several leading scientific research centres, namely CNAM, CEA and the Observatoire de Paris.