Abstract

Integrated studies are - for example - the National Environmental Outlook and the Public Health Status and Forecasts. Especially through these studies the RIVM performs its role as an interface between policy and science. Quality assurance with respect to integrated studies should be based on: - Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) at the contributing RIVM Laboratories ; - quality assurance by external partners for their contributions ; - quality assurance regarding the completing, integrating and interpreting process that produces the eventual report. Quality assurance regarding the process that integrates the various contributions should take into account that the procedures cannot always be exactly described beforehand. Also the starting material by necessity offers a broad spectrum of scientific robustness, ranging from hard to soft, because a broad area has to be described in an integral manner. Therefore, the nature of the quality assurance is different from the usual GLP at the RIVM. The quality assurance regarding the integration process can best be organized analogous to quality assurance regarding research. This gives priority to the ability to reconstruct the basis of the report and the deductions that have led to the conclusions, rather than working via Standard Operating Procedures.