Part VI: Institutions of Institutions

Some institutions engaged in materials science themselves consist of networks of institutions. As Terry Quinn points out in “The Origin and Early Days of Material Research in Metrology Laboratories,” metrology is an example. The International Bureau of Weights and Measures, or BIPM after the French acronym, was established in 1872 and set out to manufacture metric standards. But the standards failed to meet the desired requirements, and the BIPM wound up making several different contributions to materials science: (1) study of materials used in the standards in the days when these were material objects; (2) testing materials and standards; (3) coordination with national metrological institutions and their standards, including the German National Metrology Laboratory (PTB), the UK National Physical Laboratory (NPL), the US National Bureau of Standards (NBS), and later the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and a host of other international agencies. From the first, the BIPM was the center of a global network and institution of institutions…