Europe wide industry certification using standard procedures based on ISO 17024

Abstract

ECQA (European Certification and Qualification Association) is the result of a series of EU funded projects from 2005 -2012. This included European projects such as EQN (European Quality Network, 2005 -2007), EU Certificates Campus (2008 -2009) and DEUCERT (Dissemination of EU Certification), the ECQA nowadays acts as an organization that is independent from funding. The members of ECQA are widely spread all over Europe and vary from universities to companies as well as individuals. ECQA is aimed at a demographic problem of education and training in the European Union. For people at 40 -50 it is many years ago that they attended the university and required skills nowadays are changing every 2-3 years. This means that their skills get outdated and we experience in Europe a growing unemployment from the age of 45 upwards. Universities in Europe are currently not addressing this problem.