Fourth Edition of the measurement science in chemistry summer school Poznań (Poland) 11–22 July 2011

The fourth Measurement Science in Chemistry International Summer School was held in Poznan (Poland) from July 11 2011 to July 22 2011. In this edition, 43 students from thirteen countries participated coming from Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, France, Latvia, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine. The European Commission JRC Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements has bootstrapped the Euromaster Measurement Science in Chemistry consortium and acts as its mentor organization. The reason is that chemical and bio-analytical measurements set the foundations for critical decisions throughout many areas which are high on the European policy agenda. Nevertheless, most students in Europe graduating in chemistry enter the job market lacking appropriate knowledge and competence about quality assurance in this area (i.e., linked to ISO/IEC17025). For this reason, the JRC-IRMM, whose mission it is to promote a common and reliable European measurement system in support of EU policies, has fostered since 2005 the creation of such a consortium in line with the European 2020 Flagship Initiave Youth on the Move. The consortium is currently composed of nine universities (http://www.msc-euromaster.eu) located in seven European countries and new members may apply. It was awarded the ‘‘Euromaster’’ quality label in 2008 by the ECTNA (European Chemistry Thematic Network Association). During the summer school, students learnt about quality in analytical chemistry and not only the theory (traceability, uncertainty, statistics, validation, use of reference materials), but also the practice. In a role playing game, they created their own company to perform analysis and they competed among themselves. They learnt about how to interact with clients. For one day, they became an accreditation technical assessor when visiting a real laboratory (in this case, the Wodociągi environmental laboratory in Poznan). During a field trip, they went to take their own environmental samples in the Ecology Station of Jeziory. The consortium contributes to invigorating and innovating analytical sciences in Europe. Should you be interested to join, please contact the current coordinator, Prof. Ewa Bulska from Warsaw University (http://www. ebulska@chem.uw.edu.pl).