Happy New Year, I am looking forward to 2023 being a year of successful processes and good controls for our decisions that will benefit all ILAC members, partners and interested regulators.

In the past year, despite being a challenging year that required all of us to continue working with a new normal, including conducting our activities online, we managed to fulfill all our plans and even beyond.

The ILAC set of policy documents and internal work procedures that bind all of us as members continue to be managed and implemented in an exceptional way by the ILAC secretariat, the committee Chairs and members and the ILAC Executive.

The work of the IAF/ILAC Steering Committee continues on our mega project, one international organisation for accreditation, with the issue of stakeholder voting rights currently being considered via ballot and the tender for the Secretariat being drafted.

Applications for the recognition of the accreditation of Biobanks from the regions are now being accepted following the publication of ILAC P4, P5 and R6. This evaluation of applicant regional cooperations for this scope is the final stage in the process for extending the ILAC MRA to include the accreditation of biobanks.

ILAC and IAF reviewed and re-signed the MoU with The International Telecommunications Union (ITU), supporting and strengthening our commitment to cooperation and collaboration to the ongoing development of ITU-T’s Conformity and Interoperability (C&I) programme.

ILAC also signed the Joint Statement of Intent On the Digital Transformation in the International Scientific and Quality Infrastructure.

In 2022 we again held a competition for the design of the World Accreditation Day (WAD) poster, again took our WAD event online and saw excellent engagement and launched a joint podcast series.

Finally for 2022, the latest edition of ISO 15189 was published, so all ABs that accredit Medical Labs, now have 3-year implementation period (i.e. until Dec 2025) to ensure accredited medical laboratories comply with this latest edition of the standard.

The year ahead will be challenging and brings with it a variety of activities and face-to-face meetings following three years of on-line only meetings. 2023 will see us consider and require us to make significant decisions to maintain our standing in the world as an international accreditation organization with the tagline ‘accredited once, accept everywhere’.  In making these decisions we must maintain the trust of all our stakeholders and international organizations with whom we have mutual recognition agreements. Above all, we will continue to improve the work and cooperation between us, the members of ILAC, and those that wish to join, in a professional manner and respecting the decisions made by all members.

 Happy new year, prosperity, fulfillment, and success.