Membership Criteria
APAC is an association of accreditation bodies that accredit the technical competence of conformity assessment bodies (e.g. testing and calibration laboratories, inspection bodies, certification bodies, proficiency testing providers, reference material producers, validation and verification bodies, biobanks, etc.).
Organizations wishing to become an APAC Member or Affiliate are advised to read the Governance (GOV) documents, especially GOV-001 APAC Constitution and GOV-002 APAC Regulations and Codes, and the Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA) documents under the Publications tab on the APAC website.
In summary, APAC has two classes of membership.
- Associate membership for those organisations that provide, or are building the capacity to provide, accreditation of conformity assessment bodies in accordance with ISO/IEC 17011:2017 and relevant IAF and ILAC requirements – to be considered for Associate Member status the organisation must have already accredited at least five conformity assessment bodies in accordance with the relevant international standards, two of which have to be accredited for the same scope. The accreditation services that Associate Members provide are not recognised under the APAC Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA) because Associate Members have not been peer evaluated and have not been accepted as APAC MRA signatories; and
- Full membership that is reserved for Associate Members that have successfully completed their initial peer evaluation under the APAC Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA). They become APAC Full Members after their positive peer evaluation recommendation is accepted by the existing APAC Full Members.
Associate Members are expected to undertake their initial peer evaluation to become Full Members within the first three years of becoming an Associate Member.
Organisations that are not an accreditation body, or not building capacity to become one, may be eligible to become an Affiliate of APAC. Examples of these type of organisations include national accreditation focal points, or organisations that have an interest in accredited conformity assessment results, such as associations of conformity assessment bodies, or organisations representing user interests (e.g. specifiers, regulators). APAC membership or affiliate status is not available for individual conformity assessment bodies.