Quality means decency-on the quality of teaching through accreditation of the course?

The term “accreditation” applies to the attempts in various fields of scientific work and administration. It refers to an acknowledgement of some particular positive (wanted) property being present in or brought about by either a procedure or technical system, an acknowledgement which is then formally issued by some authority generally accepted to be able to prove and file such statements. Bioindication & Biomonitoring (B&B) technologies are highly influenced by accreditation procedures, because both B&B technologies are often related to accreditation during the overall instrumental measurement processes applied. As an example, tuna fish used for (bio) monitoring salt water systems on pollution by Pb will be presented. Analytical measurement results from the International Measurement Evaluation Programme (IMEP 20) and additionally the construction of the university course “Integrative sustainable management: quality, environmental, health, safety and risk management (QUAR)” are reviewed in this respect. It was a serious finding by the multi-participant IMEP study that neither quality control measures nor accreditation actually ensure improved quality of measurement results, i.e. data produced by analytical laboratories. Accordingly, even though the accreditation of study curricula is often done with utmost diligence and precision, and while it is fairly important for making study curricula throughout Europe (and the World) fitting and comparable to each other to get study results produced and tested at university X also be accepted when changing to university Y, we cannot assume or take for granted that the mere protocol of accreditation will do anything positive to improve the chance to get better or “more correct” results. A single member of lab staff or professor changing to some other position might seriously compromise the turnout of some analytical lab or university course at least in the short term regardless of whether accreditation was done or not. As consequence, data obtained by B&B technologies have to be discussed and handled with the highest care to reach acceptable and scientifically sound goals of quality.