European current landscape in laboratory accreditation

Abstract

The number of accredited laboratories in the world shown considerable growth in the last 2 decades. These laboratories are from different institutions, such as national or multinational organizations, Higher Education Institutions (HEI) and Research Institutes (RI). This paper presents and comments on the current landscape of accreditation, from the point of view of testing and calibration laboratories under the ISO/IEC 17025 standard, in Europe. Laboratories accredited by signatory bodies of the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation Mutual Recognition Arrangement (ILAC MRA) were identified and classified by institution type. The results were compared with those obtained in a previous research on the American Continent. An upward trend in the number of accredited laboratories with the increase in the population and/or GDP was observed in EU countries. Several similar characteristics were found in both regions, America and Europe. Nevertheless, a strong regulation in specifics areas seems to be higher in Europe and a smaller disparity was observed between European countries. Besides, as accreditation of laboratories in HEI and RI presents additional difficulties, the identification of these laboratories will be used as a basis for future work.