On 14 February, Cecilie Laake, Director General of Norsk Akkreditering (NA) and Tove Kristin Dokka, Accreditation Manager at the Norwegian accreditation body, visited DAkkS. Topics covered in the bilateral exchange included the new risk-based approach for the assessment programme, the organisational structures of DAkkS and the new fee regulation.

At the beginning of February, Dr. Stephan Finke, Managing Director of the German National Accreditation Body (Deutsche Akkreditierungsstelle, DAkkS), welcomed the General Director of the Azerbaijani Accreditation Centre (AZAC),

Since 2015, the German National Accreditation Body (Deutsche Akkreditierungsstelle, DAkkS) has been part of what is now a ten-year success story of international cooperation. In cooperation with the German Institute for Standardization (DIN) and on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi), DAkkS is responsible for the core element of the “National TBT Enquiry Point Germany”.

With its participation in the sixth annual meeting of the German-Indian Quality Infrastructure working group, the German National Accreditation Body (Deutsche Akkreditierungsstelle, DAkkS) renewed its commitment to the reduction of technical barriers to trade within the framework of accreditation and conformity assessment.

The German National Accreditation Body (Deutsche Akkreditierungsstelle, DAkkS) and Assurance Services International (ASI), formerly Accreditation Services International, have signed an agreement to ensure future cooperation in Germany. Both parties agree that the partnership is an important step toward further strengthening the field of sustainability.

Since mid-2017, DAkkS has been part of a twinning project designed to strengthen the national accreditation body in Azerbaijan (AZAK). DAkkS is the leading partner in a German-Italian-Latvian consortium with its counterpart accreditation bodies ACCREDIA and LATAK, Taking stock of progress at a midterm conference held in Baku at the beginning of September, the assessment of the participants was positive.

According to the revised policy of the Deutsche Akkreditierungsstelle GmbH (DAkkS) regarding its rules and regulations for accreditation, all rules which merely describe the so-called "state of the art" (level 4 and 5) will no longer be provided and published as their own rules.

Berlin, 7th May 2018 – From 14 to 15 May 2018, the sixth international training for assessors of ac-creditation bodies for Organic Production according to ISO/IEC 17065 continues with its objective to achieve an effective, risk-oriented surveillance of control bodies and the overall harmonization of international accreditation of certification bodies.

German Accreditation Body (DAkkS) is currently preparing the process of conversion to the ISO/IEC 17025:2017 standard. The new version of the globally applicable standard for the laboratory sector was drawn up by the competent committee for conformity assessment (CASCO) at the international standardisation body ISO and published in English at the end of November.

In January, German Accreditation Body (DAkkS) was recognised by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as an accreditation body in the area of American formaldehyde regulation. From this point on, DAkkS can accredit approved certification bodies in the area of formaldehyde emission measurement.