Five chairpersons coming from EA-member national accreditation bodies (NABs) have been elected at the last General Assembly of the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC).

Picture: Peter Unger (A2LA, USA) leaving the ILAC Chairmanship to Merih Malmqvist Nilsson (SWEDAC, Sweden).

The 20th ILAC General Assembly held on 4 November 2016 in New Delhi, India, endorsed the election of Merih Malmqvist Nilsson from SWEDAC, the Swedish NAB, as the ILAC Chair. Merih was the first Chair of the EA Horizontal Harmonisation Committee (HHC), whose creation in 2009 and development were given all her involvement and energy.

Merih Malmqvist Nilsson will give up her current seat as the ILAC vice-chair to Etty Feller from ISRAC, the Israeli NAB, who has been elected as the new ILAC Vice-Chair.

Erik Oehlenschlaeger from DANAK, the Danish NAB, has been elected as the Chair of the ILAC Accreditation Committee (AIC), which is responsible for harmonisation and improvement of accreditation practice in the laboratory field. Erik has been contributing very actively to the activities of the EA Laboratory Committee (LC) and the EA HHC since several years.

Arne Lund from SWEDAC has been re-elected as the Chair of the ILAC Inspection Committee (IC), whereas the ILAC Marketing and Communications Committee (MCC) will still be chaired by Jon Murthy from UKAS, the UK NAB. Jon is the UKAS representative in EA’s mirror Communications and Publications Committee (CPC), which he led as the vice-chair a few years ago.

The whole EA community is very pleased with these elections which confirm the role played by EA at the international level, and encourage EA NABs to champion their opinions within and beyond a strengthened European region.

The following officers to the ILAC Executive Committee have also been elected in New Delhi:
– Ileana Martinez (NVLAP, USA) to chair the ILAC Arrangement Committee;
– Liliane Somma (OUA, Uruguay) to chair the ILAC Joint Development Support Committee;
– Jennifer Evans (NATA, Australia) to chair the ILAC Arrangement Management Committee;
– Steve Sidney (NLA, South Africa) to chair the ILAC Laboratory Committee.

All officers to the ILAC Executive Committee have been elected for two years.

EA congratulates every elected chairperson, to whom it wishes a fruitful term during 2017-2018.