Introduction:

In 2007, the Institute for National Measurement Standards (INMS) of the National Research Council of Canada promoted the first Tri-national Workshop on Standards for Nanotechnologies as a forum to exchange experiences on nanotechnologies among the organizations involved in the development of measurement standards, and those of research and development in the field, under the cooperation among the National Metrology Institutes (NMI) at Canada, USA and Mexico.
At that time the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Centro Nacional de Metrología (CENAM), México, were invited. Taking into account the positive results of this first Workshop, one year later NIST organized the second workshop, where documentary standards were included. Following this momentum, CENAM will be hosting the third workshop on February 12, 2009. A number of presentations and discussions will cover some issues on the state and challenges of nanotechnologies, in terms of physical and documentary standards.