The ninth NEWRAD Conference was held in Davos, Switzerland, between 16 and 19 October 2005. The Conference was organized by the Physikalisch- Meteorologisches Observatorium Davos, World Radiation Center (PMOD/WRC). The Conference was attended by 169 participants from five continents, which makes it the largest NEWRAD conference to date. The NEWRAD Conference followed the 10th international pyrheliometer comparison IPC-X, which is held every five years at PMOD/WRC. In addition, the 6th UVnet Workshop was held in connection with the NEWRAD Conference on 20 and 21 October.
The NEWRAD Conference brings together people from the national metrology institutes and the principal user communities of advanced radiometry, including meteorological and remote-sensing communities. A total of 153 papers were presented, of which eight were keynote or invited talks, and there were 105 posters. Coffee breaks and extended lunch breaks created a stimulating atmosphere for lively discussions and exchange of ideas. Notwithstanding the excellent weather and the tantalizing surroundings of Davos, most participants managed to attend the poster sessions, which were organized during the noon lunch breaks.
The conference proceedings can be downloaded from the NEWRAD 2005 website at www.pmodwrc.ch/newrad2005/pdfabstracts/Newrad_Proceedings_2005_A7.pdf. For this and future conferences, a new policy was adopted to publish a selected number of contributions in a special issue of Metrologia. The purpose of the change is to increase the overall impact of this journal. The NEWRAD Scientific Committee invited the contributions to this special issue on the basis of the quality of the extended abstracts, and later the submitted manuscripts were reviewed by the Committee members.
On behalf of the Scientific Committee and all the participants, one of us (EI) wishes to thank Werner Schmutz and his colleagues from the Local Organizing Committee for arranging an excellent conference in the beautiful city of Davos. As the new Chairman of the Scientific Committee, he also acknowledges the valuable contributions of the previous Chairman, Andrew Wallard, in leading the work of the Committee.
The next NEWRAD Conference will be organized by the Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS) on 13–17 October 2008. We are grateful to Dr In-Won Lee for his invitation to arrange NEWRAD 2008 at KRISS. Dr Lee can be contacted by e-mail at optin@kriss.re.kr.