Cooperation in publicly funded reference material production

• Published in: Accreditation and quality assurance Vol. 23; no. 6; pp. 371 - 377
• Main Authors: Emteborg, Håkan, Florian, Doris, Choquette, Steven, Ellison, Stephen L. R., Fernandes-Whaley, Maria, Mackay, Lindsey, McCarron, Pearse, Panne, Ulrich, Sander, Sylvia G., Kim, Sook-Kyung, Held, Andrea, Linsinger, Thomas, Trapmann, Stefanie
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01-12-2018; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Analytical Chemistry; Biochemistry; Chemistry; Chemistry and Materials Science; Collaboration; Commercial Law; Ecotoxicology; Food Science; Funding; Human resources; International Bodies; Laboratories; Legislation; Marketing; Production costs; Quality assurance; Reference materials; Trends; Canada; South Africa; Australia; Japan
• ISSN: 0949-1775; 1432-0517
• DOI: 10.1007/s00769-018-1349-1

In general, the publicly funded RM producers have been asked by their relevant authorities to develop and supply analytical laboratories with RMs (usually certified reference materials—CRMs) in gaseous, solid, or liquid form, thereby providing quality assurance tools for different measurement purposes. An example is the production of calibration materials for sports doping, which must be produced to the highest international standards to ensure international acceptance, yet whose development and production cost cannot be met in full by the limited number of agencies performing monitoring in this area. Ongoing projects, future trends and challenges, new certified reference material developments A key reason for holding a public RM producers’ meeting in the first place is to identify overlapping interests in order to make better use of limited public funds and technical competence related to the human resources. [...]since development of high-quality CRMs requires investment of money, time, and human resources; duplication should be avoided.