Accreditation supports the Country: results and challenges of Accredia’s Departments
Innovation, competence, regulatory developments, and technical quality: the directors of Accredia’s three Departments explain how accreditation activities for bodies and laboratories are changing, increasingly supporting the national economy.
The work of the accreditation body evolves alongside the needs of the production system, Institutions, and society, with an expansion into sectors where the reliability of verification results plays an increasingly important role.
Technical tools historically developed to support the quality and safety of industrial production now address new requirements. Certifications and inspections, testing, and calibrations are establishing themselves as guarantees in innovative fields such as sustainability, gender equality, precision medicine, forensic genetics, artificial intelligence, research, and technology transfer.
As highlighted in the Accredia 2025 Annual Report, this evolution is concretely reflected in the work of the three Departments—Testing Laboratories, Certification and Inspection, and Calibration Laboratories—in the technical officers who manage the files of accredited bodies, and in the network of assessors involved in assessment activities.
In this context, the Directors of the three Departments review the key achievements and outline the priorities that will guide activities in the near future.
Accreditation expands into new areas
One of the most significant developments in 2025 is the gradual expansion of the areas in which the market and Institutions require accredited activities. There is a growing demand related to new technologies, regulatory frameworks, and social priorities.
For testing laboratories, developments center on the growing complexity of the methods and technologies employed. Alongside established tests in the fields of chemistry and microbiology, there is increasing demand for more sensitive and specialized techniques, including those applied to genetics—both for human factor prevention and in forensic contexts—as well as precision genomics and cybersecurity.
In the field of certification and inspections, gender equality, sustainability, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity are of particular importance. The use of accreditation for gender equality certification is a concrete example of how a technical tool can be used to support public policy with economic and social impacts.
In the calibration laboratory sector, the growth in demand confirms the value placed on reliable measurements, metrological traceability, and the reproducibility of results—whether in industrial processes or in research, innovation, the digital transition, and technology transfer.
These developments respond to the need to adapt accreditation activities to the concrete evolution of the manufacturing sectors, regulations, and the country’s needs.
Volumes are growing, complexity is increasing
The 2025 data paint a picture of an expanding system.
- Testing laboratories: the 1,448 accredited bodies and the high number of surveillance audits indicate growth accompanied by intensive assessment activities.
- Certification and inspection bodies: the nearly 1,000 accreditations are linked to the introduction of new national and European legislative standards, which have a direct impact on assessment processes.
- Calibration laboratories: the approximately 250,000 certificates issued in 2025 reflect the focus of companies and organizations on measurement reliability.
However, this growth is not merely quantitative. There is also an increase in the specialization of competence, the complexity of methods, assessment techniques, and the need to correctly interpret constantly evolving standards and regulations.
Accredia assessment as an opportunity for improvement
A particularly significant aspect concerns how the relationship between Accredia and accredited bodies and laboratories is perceived.
In the testing laboratory sector, Accredia’s assessment is increasingly seen less as a mere bureaucratic formality and more as an opportunity for the laboratory to demonstrate its capabilities, evaluate its compliance with applicable requirements, and identify opportunities for improvement.
For all accredited bodies, the role of the assessment in obtaining or maintaining accreditation is increasingly strategic: it involves not only verifying compliance with requirements but also a structured evaluation of the technical and organizational capacity to deliver reliable results—a capability to be demonstrated to the market through an internationally recognized certification.
This approach involves the entire accreditation system: Department staff, assessors, and accredited bodies, each in their own role and with distinct responsibilities.
New competence for new compliance sectors
The expansion of Accredia’s activities requires constant updating of the skills of technical staff and assessment teams, with knowledge being shared and updated in a timely manner as demanded by the market and Institutions.
For the Testing Laboratories Department, the needs relate in particular to areas such as precision genomics, cybersecurity, and applications of artificial intelligence.
For the Certification and Inspection Department, the work is guided by the evolution of management system certification standards (new ISO 9001, 14001, and 45001 standards), as well as accreditation standards for inspections and persons certification (new ISO/IEC 17020 and 17024 standards), and by European regulations on sustainability, greenwashing, artificial intelligence, and digital security.
For the Calibration Laboratories Department, the diversification of requests includes new accreditation scopes, metrology applications, and emerging fields, including biobanks. This direction is also reflected in the Accredia Academy’s Summer School program, launched with the goal of expanding and updating the skills of internal staff and professionals at accredited laboratories.
Organizational innovation and digitalization
As the volume and technical complexity of Accredia’s activities increase, the development of internal processes using innovative tools is a strategic objective for all three Departments.
In the Testing Laboratories Department, the process of digitizing operations (3A, DA-online) continues, with the goal of making accreditation management simpler and more efficient without compromising the technical rigor of the assessments. Future work also includes analyzing potential applications of artificial intelligence in internal processes, in areas where its use is compatible with the activities carried out.
This issue concerns the entire organization: digitization does not replace technical competence, but it can support organizational efficiency, timely responses, and the management of a system characterized by high volumes and increasingly specialized activities.
The priority therefore remains twofold: to maintain the quality and reliability of assessments and, at the same time, to make processes more efficient for accredited bodies and laboratories, as well as for the organizations that manage them.
Reliability and international recognition
The international dimension is another structural element of Accredia’s Departments’ activities.
The participation of technical staff in European and international committees allows Accredia to represent the needs of Italian bodies and laboratories and to contribute to the evolution of accreditation rules. The work of all staff members remains essential for maintaining and expanding the EA and Global ACI international mutual recognition agreements, which enable accredited activities to be recognized in global markets.
Among the activities planned for 2026 are efforts to extend the scope of the EA MLA Agreements—to which Accredia is a signatory—to research and development biobanks, and preparations for the EA peer evaluation at the end of the year.
The use of accreditation for bodies notified to the European Commission also fits into this framework. The collaboration developed with government ministries has supported the expansion of accreditation across numerous regulated sectors, culminating in the recent agreement on recreational boating equipment with the Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy and the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport.
International recognition is therefore not a goal separate from the Departments’ day-to-day activities: it is an essential condition for ensuring that accredited test reports, certificates, certifications and inspections can underpin trust in trade, in productive activities, and in relations with Institutions.
In this context, the Departments’ role is to translate the needs of the market, Institutions, and society into accreditation processes that are technically rigorous, organizationally sustainable, and internationally recognized.
