ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER

Our newsletter is intended as a platform for an exchange of information for all EUROLAB members. It aims at providing news on developments within the European laboratory community, their interaction with partner organisations (and other so-called "stakeholders"), on recent activities of EUROLAB as well as on relevant technical and political documents. We would like to invite you, especially the national secretariats, to contribute any useful information important for all of us.

JUST PUBLISHED: EUROLAB TECHNICAL REPORT 1/2005
In the EUROLAB Newsletter October 2004 first results of a EUROLAB survey on accreditation of proficiency test (PT) providers were already presented. The European PT providers listed in the EPTIS database (www.eptis.bam.de) had been asked in August/September 2004 for their status and form of accreditation, their experiences and their expectations. The response rate of more than 110 questionnaires (approx. 35%) emphasises the topicality of this item for the PT providers.

Now the results have been compiled and are published as EUROLAB Technical Report 1/2005, which will be available on the EUROLAB website by the end of March 2005.

While it is not EUROLAB´s intention to comment on the results of this inquiry within this report, a separate position paper will be published on PT, its role and use within the quality control of laboratories and EUROLAB's views on the added value of accreditation in this field.

Meeting of the EA/EUROLAB/EURACHEM/EUROMET/CEOC chairpersons and with Jacques McMillan (DG Enterprise)
The meeting of the EA, EURACHEM, EUROLAB and EUROMET chairpersons has become an important forum and tool for their cooperation taking place in the beginning of each year. This year on 21 January in Paris for the first time also the chairman of CEOC, Hugo Eberhardt, participated. Issues discussed were the reference to ISO 9001 on accreditation certificates and the revision of the International Vocabulary of Metrology (VIM).

The second part of the meeting was also attended by Jacques McMillan from the European Commission, DG Enterprise. The discussions focussed on the review of the New and Global Approach for which a concept will be developed by DG Enterprise by the end of 2005 aiming at a horizontal paper to be used by the European Commission for developing sectorial directives.

BRAINSTORMING: ADDED VALUE OF EUROLAB FOR ITS MEMBERS
One of the discussion fora of the National Members' Meeting on 26 October 2004 focussed on how to enhance the added value of EUROLAB for its members. The results of this brainstorming discussion and advanced considerations by the EUROLAB Board of Administrators are now summarised in a paper which can be downloaded from the EUROLAB website. Besides proposals for the improvement of the co-operation between national EUROLAB organisations and their members and for the effectiveness of the Technical Committees and working groups, new means for an intensified co-operation among the EUROLAB members and possible services by the Technical Secretariat are addressed. EUROLAB members are invited to participate in the dialogue and to submit their expectations and ideas to the EUROLAB Secretariat (eurolab@bam.de).

The two other discussion fora were headed "Proficiency Testing and Reference Materials" and "Co-operation with accreditation bodies - the PLG", of which the results are also available now on the website.

CYPRUSLAB
CyprusLab, the Association of Laboratories in Cyprus, is from now on in full operation. The Association is established as a non-governmental organisation. The Temporary Committee, appointed in June 2003, was assigned to follow the necessary legal procedures to register the association. This mission has now been completed and about 40 laboratories are already registered as full members of the association. The next step is to organise the first General Assembly to elect the official committee and make decisions on the functions and role of the association. Amongst the main priorities of the association is (1) to organise the working groups, (2) promote good laboratory practice and laboratory accreditation principles within the laboratories and (3) establish a code of ethics.

Soon, CyprusLab will build its own website, where the members of the association can find useful information relevant to their fields of interest. Furthermore, any laboratory, from all over Cyprus, interested in CyprusLab activities could access the site and find such information thus contributing to the continuous improvement of the laboratories' tasks and achievements of the CyprusLab mission.

EUROLAB-GERMANY
A common workshop of EUROLAB-Germany and of the German Accreditation Council (DAR) on 29 June 2005 in Berlin, Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing, will focus on technical aspects of estimating measurement uncertainty. For more details see http://www.eurolab-d.bam.de/.

Many laboratories still have problems with fulfilling this requirement of ISO/IEC 17025. As experience has shown seminars or workshops of one or two days are not sufficient because knowledge of statistical principles is required and there should be time enough for exercises with practical examples. That is why EUROLAB-Germany has proposed to establish temporary working groups, in which members of different laboratories solve such problems based on proposals resulting from their own practical work. The workshop is aiming at facilitating the creation of such groups. EUROLAB-Germany would like to support such a form of co-operation with practical objectives as a mean to enhance the added value of our organisation for its members.

CROLAB
CROLAB is inviting for its first International Conference "Competence of Laboratories" from 3rd to 6th November 2005 in Dubrovnik, Croatia. Topics of the bilingual Croatian-English Conference will be Research, Development and Education, quality systems and laboratory organisation, measurement and testing, standardisation and patents and marketing. Proposals and abstracts are welcome by 31st May 2005. The Program committee will coordinate the contents and structure of this conference by next June. For more information please see http://www.crolab.hr

TURKLAB
TURKLAB Members participated in an informative workshop "Analytical methods for Aflatoxin Analysis" from 6-10 December. Tord Möller was instructor of the program which was supported by the EU MEDA program.TURKLAB also participated in the educational seminars organized by BAM, ACA and a TÜV consortium in February 2005, i.e. from 8-10 February, Istanbul: 75 participants attended the program, from 15-17 February, Izmir, 25 participants and from 22-24 February, Ankara, 60 participants. "Importance and Benefits of Accreditation and Quality Management" and "Conformity Assessment Bodies' Role in Free Trade of Goods and Fair Competition" workshops were supported by the MEDA program.Dr.Omer Guzel attended a TV program for promoting the quality infrastructure of Turkey.

17025 DRAFT AMENDMENT
In February 2005 96% of all ISO members and of IEC national committees voted in favour of the Final Draft Amendment to ISO/IEC 17025 "General Requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories". With the new ISO 17025:2005 all requirements of ISO 9001:2000 relevant for the laboratories' management systems have been incorporated. We will provide further information in a coming Newsletter.

ISO/IEC 17000 IS NOW PUBLISHED
The new International standard ISO/IEC 17000 "Conformity assessment - Vocabulary and general principles" was published recently. As an entry to the 17000 series of standards it provides the terminology for conformity assessment and in an annex a description of a functional approach to conformity assessment. The new standard partly replaces ISO/IEC Guide 2.

FROM	TO	EVENT
30 March 2005		EUROLAB Technical Committee on Quality Assurance (TCQA), Berlin
11 April 2005		EUROLAB/CEOC Joint Technical Committee on Product Testing and Certification (JTC PTC), Brussels
19 April 2005	20 April 2005	Permanent Liaison Group of EUROLAB, EA and EURACHEM (PLG) meeting, Berne
21 April 2005		EUROLAB Working Group on Measurement Uncertainty, Berlin
25 April 2005		EAAB Conformity Assessment Network, Brussels
26 April 2005		EA Advisory Board, Brussels
27 April 2005	28 April 2005	EEE PT Working Group, Copenhagen, DANAK
08 June 2005	09 June 2005	EA General Assembly, Helsinki
27 June 2005	29 June 2005	Symposium "Uncertainties in the field of noise and vibration", Le Mans, organised by EUROLAB France
20 October 2005		EA-EUROLAB-EURACHEM Workshop "Regulation and standard requirements for conformity assessment of products, services and processes", Paris
21 October 2005		EUROLAB National Members' Meeting, Paris

EA / EUROLAB / EURACHEM WORKSHOP ON "REGULATION AND STANDARD REQUIREMENTS FOR CONFORMITY ASSESSMENT OF PRODUCTS, SERVICES AND PROCESSES" ON 20 OCTOBER 2005 IN PARIS
Biennially the three organisations arrange a joint workshop on topics of common interest, organised by the Permanent Liaison Group (PLG). This year it is EUROLAB's turn to prepare the workshop which will be hosted by the Laboratoire National de Métrologie et d'Essais (LNE) in Paris. A coming EUROLAB Newsletter will inform on the detailed programme of the workshop which will be both in English and French languages.

UNCERTAINTIES IN ACOUSTICS - A SYMPOSIUM IN JUNE 2005 IN LE MANS, FRANCE
EUROLAB-France has informed us on a further event on measurement uncertainty: a Symposium on "Uncertainties in the field of noise and vibration" from 27 to 29 June 2005 in Le Mans, commonly organised by INCE Europe, CIDB (Noise information and document center in France) and the European Acoustics Association. All interested parties, i.e. laboratories, consultants, manufacturers, authorities and researchers are invited for an exchange of experience in the fields of sound and vibration instrumentation; noise measurements (for vehicles, machines, buildings, materials, sound maps) and referring to prediction models and software for environmental acoustics, sound mapping, vibroacoustics, aeroacoustics. For detailed information, i.e. lectures and discussion sessions, the exhibition and venue please look at the website of this symposium.

NLA CONFERENCE
From 5th to 7th September 2005 the National Laboratory Association (NLA) will hold a Test & Measurement 2005 - Conference" in Caesars Hotel & Convention Resort, Johannesburg, South Africa. Lectures on a broad variety of technical fields of calibration and testing, but also laboratory management and others are welcome, the date of submission of abstracts - has been extended to April 30th, 2005.

Please see the website of our Affiliate Member www.nla.org.za, for the Conference www.nla.org.za.

10TH EUROPEAN MEETING ON FIRE RETARDANCY AND PROTECTION ON MATERIALS (FRPM '05), BAM, BERLIN, 7 - 9 SEPTEMBER 2005
With respect to applications such as building construction, transportation, electrical and electronic engineering, key properties of materials include ignitability, flame spread and resistance to fire. Hence, a main challenge is to provide effective fire retardancy for polymers by striking a balance between their functionality and their risk as fire hazard. Commercial and regulatory pressure is a strong impetus driving multi-disciplinary research and development in this field.

This biennial conference, co-organised by EUROLAB, is the most important forum for Europe to assess the state of the art and to discuss new developments coming up in the field of flame retardancy. For the detailed programme, further information and registration see http://www.frpm05.bam.de.

It is with great sadness that we advise our members of the passing of Erik van Erp Taalman Kip on 29 December 2004 at the age of 71. He has for many years been one of the prominent members of EUROLAB as the delegate from EUROLAB-Nederland. The respect he has gained from his colleagues in Europe and the dedication to his work contributed greatly to furthering the interests of the European laboratory community.