About the RvA
Almost every country in Europe has a national accreditation body. In the Netherlands, this is the RvA. Our primary task is to accredit and maintain the accreditation of conformity assessment organisations: laboratories, inspection bodies, certification bodies and verification bodies. So that confidence in the quality of products and services is truly justified.
Control of control
Conformity assessment bodies must have expertise, be impartial and independent. Because only then will the issued certificates be reliable. This is checked by the RvA. We do this by checking whether these organisations comply with the European (EN) and international (ISO or ISO/IEC) standards. If this is indeed the case, they will receive an accreditation mark. Accreditation is therefore a check of the check.
Our customers
The RvA assesses conformity assessment bodies:
- Laboratories
- Calibration settings
- Inspection bodies
- Certification bodies
- Authentication settings
- Validation settings
These conformity assessment organisations assess whether the products and services of companies meet the requirements. They do this for every conceivable field of work, from health, environment, construction and energy to food, transport and finance. If the result is good, the company receives a declaration of conformity in the form of a certificate or report.
Fields of work and disciplines
Because the fields of work of the conformity assessment bodies differ so much, the conformity assessments are also carried out in different ways. There are different disciplines; for example, it can involve testing a sample in a laboratory, measuring critical parts of a complex installation, screening an organisation and its production processes or examining a person.
The subjects of the assessments in these disciplines are also very diverse. Accreditation ranges from DNA research to websites, from free-range eggs to career advisors, from elevators to asbestos inspections, etc. Our field of work is constantly expanding.
Our stakeholders
There are various stakeholders in the field of accreditation:
- Clients of the RvA or the conformity assessment bodies
- Customers of conformity assessment bodies, or the business community
- Trade associations
- Governments
- Scientific institutes
- Schema owners
- Consumers, citizens
Good interaction with these parties is essential for the growth of trust in accreditation. Trust in the organisations accredited by the RvA and trust in the quality and safety of products and services by citizens and companies. That is why the RvA regularly contacts interested parties.
Collaboration with business and government
The RvA operates in the public and private domains. This is a special position.
Private domain
The collaboration with the business community originates from the establishment of the RvA in 1995 as a private foundation. The business community is representatively represented in supervisory bodies such as the User Council of Stakeholders and the Advisory Panel. Consultation structures have also been set up with various organisations, such as Fenelab, NVCi, NEN committee for medical laboratories and external scheme managers.
Public domain
The cooperation with governments as policymakers and inspections is in line with the government’s position to pursue an integrated approach to supervision of public interests. This includes a more efficient organisation of supervision, partly to keep the supervisory burden for companies as low as possible. A good mutual exchange of information is an important part of this. The expectation is that more parties will want to agree on an information protocol with the RvA. Such as the NEa (2017).
Scheme owners
For many years, the RvA has been working with external scheme owners. These are parties that are not conformity assessment bodies (CABs) themselves. In some areas of work, the market and/or the government has chosen to have a centrally harmonised scheme developed and managed by an external scheme owners.
The objective of an external scheme owner is usually to achieve a so-called ‘level playing field’ in a sector and to increase harmonisation between the CABs. The external scheme owner brings together the stakeholders on the subject of conformity assessment, so that there is support for the scheme in question in the market. The scheme owner then concludes agreements for the use of the scheme with one or more CABs.
Nationale accreditatie-instantie
The RvA is a private foundation. In 2010, the Dutch government designated the RvA as the national accreditation body, based on the European Regulation 765/2008.
The RvA is an independent administrative body and is accountable to the Minister of Economic Affairs. As an independent foundation and independent administrative body, the RvA does not have a profit objective.
The RvA was established in 1995 from a merger of several parties:
- Dutch Calibration Organisation (NKO)
- Foundation for Recognition of Laboratories and Inspection Bodies (STERLAB/STERIN)
- Certification Board (RvC)