Quality assurance good practice for research and development and non-routine analysis Original Research Article

The application of quality assurance to routine analytical testing is fairly well established with widespread availability of general and specific guidance, both on general principles and in support of quality standards and accreditation/certification schemes. The application to non-routine work is less straightforward and widely available guidance has only recently become available with the development and publication of the EURACHEM/CITAC Guide `Quality Assurance Good Practice for Research and Development and Non-routine Analysisʹ. A workshop on the guide, and the issues which it aims to address was held during the EUROANALYSIS 10 Conference, Basel, Switzerland, 6-11 September 1998. This paper presents a summary of the presentations and discussions from that workshop. In addition to introducing the guide the workshop examined the possibilities of formal quality systems for research and development, aspects of quality assurance in the academic world, and various technical elements of quality assurance. The paper concludes with findings from group discussions on these topics.