When our three-year regional PTB project came to an end this past January, we dedicated the final event to harvesting the achievements we made together with our partners in the Eastern Partnership (EaP) region. Against this backdrop, a shared metaphorical landscape began to take shape, reflecting the progress made across the key areas of quality infrastructure (QI).
In this setting, metrology, accreditation, standardization, and the broader legal framework for quality infrastructure were strengthened through various PTB‑supported activities across different national contexts. While developments emerged rapidly in some countries, partners in others concentrated on laying essential foundations or pursuing their own priority areas.
Crucially, across all QI disciplines, some areas were developed collectively. Because these areas were closely connected, partners could easily observe one another’s progress, share ideas, and draw inspiration for their own systems. This was particularly evident in our Quality Infrastructure for Green Transformation (QI4GT) initiative, which assembled different partners through QI4GT Fund projects or regular regional workshops. We invite you to explore the PTB EaP QI project’s final publication, “Quality Standards for Increased Trade in the Eastern Partnership Countries 2022-2025”, which outlines the development processes across all QI fields and offers a closer look at the highlights of our three-year collaboration.
The PTB EaP project followed a systemic approach: to enable QI institutions in partner countries to adapt their services to support value creation, productivity, and innovation, aligned with international and European good practices. To show what this means in concrete terms, we utilized the “outcome harvesting” methodology. This approach identifies concrete changes for the end users of QI services by asking what changed, why it matters and what PTB and other stakeholders contributed. In our depiction of the QI EaP landscape, these “harvested” successes are represented by red apples scattered across the various QI fields.
Outcome harvesting of the Eastern Partnership. Image Copyright © PTB
The success of the EaP QI institutions stems not just from becoming aligned with international and European good practices, but from learning from one another. Continuous documentation and the exchange of experience are the water and sunlight of this project. Innovation does not happen in a vacuum; it happens when experts from different nations share their expertise and approaches to quality. Our follow-up PTB EaP project, which was launched in February 2026, places an even sharper focus on technical QI networks. By building joint capacities, we are ensuring that the knowledge within the region is being applied and continues to grow. We are looking forward to the next season of joint cooperation!
Cover image Copyright ©PTB/iStock
