How metrology builds trust and enables progress in a complex digital future

Metrology—the science of measurement—underpins innovation, trade, and evidence-based decision-making, yet its foundational role in discussions of technological progress is often overlooked. This article explores the findings of NPL’s most recent foresighting exercise, which examines how global change and emerging technologies are reshaping the role of metrology in the future of innovation. Four key drivers: wellbeing, enterprise, sustainability, and security, frame the conclusions, highlighting challenges from decentralised healthcare and quantum technologies to climate monitoring and cybersecurity. They also emphasise the increasing complexity of systems—especially biological, technological, and societal—that metrology must help to understand and manage. An argument is made for a cultural shift towards a “metrology mindset” and the evolving role of National Metrology Institutes (NMIs) in delivering this vision as agile, digital, and globally collaborative centres of trust in data is outlined. By embedding metrological principles into every stage of research and innovation, NMIs can ensure that science continues to improve lives, drive prosperity, and safeguard the planet. The document aims to start a renewed dialogue among metrologists and stakeholders about this vision for the future by describing some important future challenges for NMIs.