Date and time: 9:30-17:30 (CET), 11 June 2025
Location: CR6, C-building, Vienna International Center, Wagramer Str. 5, 1220 Vienna, Austria

Laboratories are one of the vital components of a modern quality infrastructure system 1 supporting a socio-economic development trajectory benefiting all through increasing economic prosperity, protecting the people and safeguarding the environment. Laboratories are necessary for proving the compliance of products and services with regulations and conformity with market requirements, while they also benefit innovation activities through supporting innovation activities such as research and development and new product testing.

While considering its functionality, laboratory development and activities should also consider and address those issues such as safety of personnel or users, digitalization, impacts on environment, energy efficiency, to ensure
sustainability of laboratory activities from the very beginning of laboratory design and construction.

For more than 40 years, UNIDO has been the largest multilateral player in quality infrastructure development and a preferred partner of many developing countries. UNIDO’s technical cooperation projects span in Asia, African, Europe and Latin America, aiming to support its Member States in developing upgrading their national and regional quality infrastructure systems for economic prosperity, environment protection and public well-being.

Resulting from its technical cooperation, UNIDO has developed and modernized over 400 laboratories worldwide through various interventions at policy, institutional and technical levels. Noting that usually policy intervention is necessary for sustainable transformation, UNIDO developed a publication “LABORATORY POLICY- A GUIDE TO DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION” in collaboration with INetQI, a network of 15 international organizations promoting quality infrastructure development. The guide aims to assist developing countries in steering their laboratory infrastructure development meeting national development strategies and market needs, given that usually they face several technical and financial constraints.

Currently, ISO/TC 336 is working on an ambitious three-year plan to develop a series of laboratory design standards. Key initiatives include:

1. Laboratory Design Roadmap (ISO/TC 336/TF 1): Creating a clear and structured plan for future work on laboratory design standards (Convenor: Mr Cedric HERRY, France).

2. Laboratory Design Vocabulary: Focusing on standardizing terms and definitions to ensure clear and consistent communication across all ISO/TC 336 standards. It has been approved to move to the Final Draft International Standard (FDIS) stage, with publication of the final International Standard expected by the end of December 2025 (Project Leader: Ms Angelica VECCHIO SADUS, Australia).

3. General Principles of Laboratory Design: Outlining fundamental concepts and best practices for laboratory design; approval as a New Work Item by 28 May 2025 (Project Leader: Ms Christiane GLANZMANN, Switzerland).

4. General Requirements for Smart Laboratory Design: Developing comprehensive guidelines for efficient and technology-integrated laboratory designs (Project Leader: Mr. Jianling LIU).

5. Smart Laboratory Design for Dairy Products: Establishing specific standards for laboratories focused on dairy product testing (Project Leaders: Mr. Sanjun ZHAO, Ms. Weijuan ZHANG).

6. Study Group on Mobile Laboratories: Reviewing information about mobile laboratories, explore their different types and uses, collect feedback on draft proposals, and identify areas where standards are needed and report its recommendations to ISO/TC 336. (Project Leader: Ms. Xiaodan TANG, China)

These initiatives aim to enhance the efficiency, safety, and digitization of laboratories around the world. This is especially beneficial for developing countries as usually they face challenges in building and managing laboratory infrastructure in a sustainable way due to various policy, institutional, technical and financial constraints.

UNIDO joined the ISO/TC 336 for Laboratory Design as a Category A Liaison, and has been actively participating the TC discussions and standardization activities. This partnership aims to ensure that efforts in developing relevant international standards could have a broader engagement with the developing world and contribute to knowledge sharing and transfer for sustainable laboratory infrastructure development.

This event will bring together experts and key stakeholders in laboratory design, development, management and operation to share insights on the challenges, solutions and good practices in developing sustainable laboratory infrastructure.

Presentations and panel discussion will be delivered to share views and case studies focus on safety, efficiency, digitalization and sustainability of laboratory infrastructure, with special attention to the needs of developing countries.

Besides, information sessions will be organized by the ISO/TC 336 and ISO Secretariat to inform the progress of the TC standardization activities and guide interested NSBs and experts to join.