Excellence Through People
In 2005 the Marine Institute became the first public body to achieve the prestigious Excellence Through People Gold Standard Award for it’s human resource management programme. Excellence Though People is the the national standard for human resource development and is awarded by FAS. It aims to encourage the development of employees to their full potential so as to maximise their contribution to the organisation.
ISO 17025 - Accredited by the Irish National Accreditation Board (INAB)
The Marine Institute's Marine Environment and Food Safety Service Area is INAB accredited to ISO 17025. The ISO 17025 standard outlines all of the requirements that testing laboratories must demonstrate to prove that they are technically competent and that the laboratory generates technically valid results. As part of INAB accreditation MEFS quality system and test methods are audited by independent technical experts to ensure compliance with the standard.
The Marine Institute was first awarded INAB accreditation for the chemical screening and confirmation of residues in fish tissue in 2002 (Reg No. 130T). Since then, the scope of accreditation has been extended yearly and we have been successful in obtaining accreditation for a total of 27 test methods. We are one of the few accredited laboratories in Europe for Phytoplankton analysis and the World’s first accredited laboratory for the analysis of the marine toxin Azaspiracid in shellfish.
The Quality Management System is led by Maria Mc Carron, Quality Manager. The Quality System covers a range of disciplines / analyses including virology, microbiology, phytoplankton, biotoxin analysis (both bioassay and by LCMSMS), and a range of analytical chemistry tests for residue and environmental contaminants. We aim to maintain accreditation for our current scope and extended it for key areas both in MEFS and other services areas of the MI.
A copy of the current scope of accreditation (130T) is available on the INAB website here.