1. QA and the Computer
2. EUROANALYSIS X: QA in R&D-Workshop

1. EURACHEM Annual Meeting in Budapest
2. EURACHEM´s WWW Site Much in Demand
3. EUROLAB Juridical Person Now
4. Many Activities around Metrology in Chemistry
5. CITAC's Solution for Fund Raising: Why Don´t We? 
6. IUPAC Harmonizes Quality Assurance Schemes 
7. DAC/FECS´s Analytical Column Reports 

1. 4th EUROLAB SYMPOS, Oct. 8-9, 98
2. ILAC`98 Conference, Oct. 18 - 23, 98
3. CITAC International Symposium on Analytical QA for the 21st Century 15-16 October 1998
4. IUPAC-ISO/REMCO-BAM-EUROLAB-D Workshop
5. EURACHEM 10th Anniversary, June 1999
6. Paul de Bièvre took his leave from IRMM

At this year´s EURACHEM Full Com- mittee meeting in Budapest, Professor Veikko Komppa (VTT Finland) took over EURACHEM chairmanship from Dr Maire C Walsh (State Laboratory Ireland).

Veikko Komppa received his M.Sc. (Tech.) with honours in 1971, Lic.Tech. in 1976, and D.Tech. in 1979, all from Helsinki University of Technology. In 1970, he joined Ahl- ström Corp. (active in glass manufac- turing) and became a respected expert in the glass and plastics´ industry. Since 1984, he has been Professor in process technology at VTT (Technical Research Centre of Finland) Chemical Technology.

He initiated supercritical fluid and ca- talysis research at VTT. At present, he is Professor and Research Manager in charge of chemical analysis. Prof Veikko Komppa established EURA- CHEM Finland in 1992, which now has 150 members (see Newsletter No 10 for more about the new Chair).

The take-over of chairmanship was in accordance with the EURACHEM Terms of Reference and on schedule. EURACHEM pays tribute to Dr Walsh for her active contributions in develo- ping and fostering EURACHEM as a focus for analytical chemistry in Eu- rope. Dr Maire C Walsh will remain in the EURACHEM Executive Commit- tee as Past Chair for two more years.

The Past and the New EURACHEM Chair in front of Budapest meeting site

1.  Finland: Spring Seminar a Success    
2. Czech: Boosting Uncertainty Evaluation
3. Switzerland:  Center of Excellence in Analytical Chemistry
4. Cyprus:  Talking Accreditation

EURACHEM Finland

EURACHEM-Finland organized its traditional spring seminar - this time together with EUROLAB-Finland - in March 1998. The topic of the seminar was Total Quality Management (TQM). In this joint seminar of the two organizations the chairman of EUROLAB-Finland Mr. Jan- Erik Levlin and the chairman of EURACHEM-Finland Mr. Veikko Komppa presented the structure and tasks of the organizations and especially in national and international forums.

Three invited experts, Mr. Marko Lehtovaara (Helsinki University of Technology), Mr. Pentti Jantunen (Valmet Oy) and Mr. Mika Mustonen(FIMKO Oy) gave interesting lectures about TQM. Mr. Lehtovaara's topic was an introduction to the philosophy of TQM. Mr. Jantunen told about TQM in the international company where TQM has been utilised to enhance competitiveness whereas Mr. Mustonen told about experiences concerning self- evaluation. The spring seminar offered many new thoughts for altogether 55 participants.

Anna-Liisa Pikkarainen
EURACHEM Finland

The Czech branch of EURACHEM develops a lot of educational and editorial activities for the Czech members.

Seven volumes of laboratory guidelines KVALIMETRIE (Qualime-trics) were issued from 1992. The last three volumes were the most impor-tant:

• · Rules for Good Practice in Environmental Sampling (Vol. 4), ·
• Quantifying Uncertainty in Analytical Measurement (Vol. 6, Czech translation of the first English edition), and ·
• Validation of Analytical Methods (Vol. 7).

All publications are in Czech lan-guage. More than two hundred copies of Vol. 4 and 6 guidelines were sold and new editions of these documents had to be printed.

A successful workshop on „Uncer-tainty of selected analytical measure-ments" with 120 participants was held in February this year. During the workshop, two detailed uncertainty studies were presented: Uncertainty of nitrate determination in biotic matrices by IC, and Uncertainty of mercury determination in food by AAS. An electronic version of these two lectures on floppy disk including detailed uncertainty budget calculations is now distributed. The next workshop dealing with uncertainty budget calculation for another analytical study of model character will be held in September.

EURACHEM-CZ is a relatively big organization. At present, approx. 80 institutions representing more than 200 individuals are EURACHEM-CZ members.

Miloslav Suchanek
EURACHEM-CZ

The Center of Excellence in Analytical Chemistry (CEAC) has been imple-mented by a group of scientists from ETHZ, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich, the Swiss Federal Institute for Environmental Science and Technology (EAWAG), the Swiss Institute for Materials Testing and Re-search (EMPA), and the Paul-Scherrer Institute (PSI) in summer 1995. The main goal of the Center of Excel-lence in Analytical Chemistry is to promote research collaborations and to coordinate teaching activities between these institutions, thus strengthening the status of analytical chemistry as a whole. The CEAC has entered its third year: Many of the ideas have been successfully established. A couple of activities may illustrate the principle involvement:

• The CEAC summer workshops. The summer workshop 1996 was entitled „Quality Assurance in Ana-lytical Research and Development". In 1997, the topic of the summer workshop was „Trends in Inorganic Instrumental Analysis". It was organized by a group of scientists from ETH Zürich and EMPA Dübendorf, and was a great success, attracting about 100 participants from five countries. The topic for the CEAC summer workshop 1998 was "Analytical Challenges in Combinatorial Chemistry" and again attracted a large audience of analytical and synthetic chemists.

• The Special Analytical Seminar. The idea to hold this seminar for just a selected number of times per semester has proven to be quite popular and successful. The seminar is organized jointly by CEAC board members, who take turns in inviting and hosting prominent speakers.
• The Wilhelm Simon Scholarship Programm in Analytical and Environmental Chemistry provides research opportunities for young scientists from developing countries and from Eastern Europe/Newly Emerging States at leading laboratories associated with CEAC. The work of one 1997 Simon fellow was largely responsible for a breakthrough in detection sensitivity for electroanalytical trace metal determinations in aqueous media. The results, which are detailed in the Annual Report 1997 of CEAC, were widely noticed by the scientific community.

CEAC information can be accessed by the following www-address: http:// ceac.ethz.ch. Copies of the Annual Report 1997 are available from: Ms. Elsa Lampkin, Laboratorium für Organische Chemie, ETH Zentrum, CH - 8092 Zürich, Telephone +41-1-632 4377, Fax +41-1-632 1292, e-mail: lampkin@org.chem.ethz.ch

Dr. Niklaus Klaentschi
EURACHEM-CH

EURACHEM-Cyprus decided to promote the co-operation with 3 working groups (i.e. Analytical Chemistry, Foodstuffs and Education) recently established by the Pancyprian Union of Chemists (PUC) in its capacity as a member of the Federation of European Chemists (FECS). It is expected that this co-operation will contribute to the promotion of EURA-CHEM targets in Cyprus.

Robert Kaarls during his lecture at a workshop on accreditation held in Nicosia

Kyriacos Tsimillis
EURACHEM-Cyprus

An international symposium and workshop covering ?Quality Assu-rance in Computerised Laboratories - Analytical, Clinical & Pharmaceutical Laboratories" took place in Copen-hagen June 11th and 12th, 1998. It was arranged by the AOAC Europe Section in collaboration with EURACHEM and organized by the Danish Technological Institute.

Some 110 participants from all over Europe including Middle and East European countries, but also from the U.S. and Israel, gathered together for two days to discuss the technological development and the ongoing impro-vements brought to the analytical laboratory by computerisation and automation with respect to actual, planned and potentially necessary QA regulations and requirements.

The symposium was subdivided into two sessions - the first one dealing with "Technological Developments and Trends", and a second session entitled "Needs and Requirements for Quality Assurance". The first session was opened by an impressive review on the use of computers for data processing in the modern laboratory by Director Thomas P. Layloff from FDA Division of Drug Analysis, St. Louis, U.S.A., recalling the beginnings of machine-based data-processing power and comparing it to modern state-of-the-art teraflop-processor power and completely computer-controlled analytical labs. Other topics covered were benefits and pitfalls of computerisation in labs, LIMS and information/communication technolo-gies.

Topics dealt with during session 2 were validation of hard- and software, the interpretation of GLP, data archi-ving and security, and the applicability of electronic reporting.

The session ended with a detailed re-port on how european accreditation bodies (EA) assess the quality of data handling in the modern laboratory, given by Lead Assessor Merih Malm-qvist from SWEDAC.

During the afternoon workshop on day 2 of the symposium, all topics from implementation of computers and software in the analytical lab to accreditation and use of computers were discussed in six working groups, and the results reported to the plenum. Contributions and results of the symposium will be published in a forthcoming issue of „Accreditation & Quality Assurance".

Opening address and closing remarks to the symposium/workshop were gi-ven by Dr Paul Beljaars, President of AOAC International, and Dr Maire Walsh, Past Chair of EURACHEM, respectively.

The symposium/workshop was accompanied by a poster exhibition. A competition for the best poster had been announced in advance, and the best poster came from Lithuania. The author, P. Serapinas from the Institute of Theoretical Physics and Astronomy in Vilnius, was awarded a ticket to attend the 1998 AOAC International Annual Meeting in Montreal and to present the winning poster on computer analysis of QC charts and data distribution functions. Congratulations!

The friendly conference site at Høje Taastrup (20 kilometers away from Copenhagen City), excellent working conditions and the perfect organization by our Danish colleagues have done their bit and made the symposium a complete success.

Wolfram Bremser
EURACHEM Secretariat

Core topic of the workshop is the pre-sentation of the 5th draft of EURA-CHEM/CITAC Guide No. 2 „QA in R&D and Non-routine Analysis". Overall chairman to the workshop is W. Wegscheider, University of Leo-ben, Austria. Besides plenary lectures, discussions in three working groups are planned. They will be chaired by W. Steck, Ludwigshafen, Germany, P. Radvila, St. Gallen, Switzerland, and B. Neidhart, Geesthacht, Germany.

The workshop aims at promoting QA in R&D and the respective EURA-CHEM/CITAC Guide, and stimulating application of QA in non-routine analysis. The target audience comprises bench level researchers/ana-lysts, non-routine analysis practitio-ners, managers, accreditation specia-lists, and academics.

Contact address:
Euroanalysis
10 c/o Congress Plus GmbH Haltingerstraße 104, CH-4057 Basel
Tel/Fax: +41 61 683 13 81/. 683 13 83
e-mail: congress-plus@access.ch
http:// www.congress.ch/euroanalysis/

The meeting was attended by 50 re-gistered participants from 25 coun-tries, predominantly from Europe, but with a noticeable transcon-tinental flavour from Australia, Japan and the United States. Invi-tees included Ronald Christensen, Executive Director of AOAC Inter-national, Wiktor Raldow, Head of the European Commission´s SMT Programme, and Alan Squirrell, Chairman of CITAC.

In Session:Taking over the Chairmanship

New Chair and Vice Chair

The EURACHEM Chair, held by Maire Walsh from State Laborato-ry, Ireland, was handed over to Veikko Komppa from VTT Chemi-cal Technology, Finland, who so far had been Vice Chair. In parallel, Ed de Leer from The Netherlands Measurement Institute became EURACHEM´s new Vice Chair.

New Guides

The Full Committee approved two new guidance documents prepared by EURACHEM working groups:

• A EURACHEM Guide on method validation entitled „The Fitness for Purpose of Analyti-cal Methods - A Laboratory Guide to Method Validation and Related Topics"
• A joint EURACHEM/CITAC Guide on quality assurance beyond routine analysis, entitled „EURACHEM/CITAC Guide 2 - Quality Assurance for Re-search and Development and Non-routine Analysis"

The draft documents will be rapidly processed for final editing and publication during the year. In addition, EURACHEM approved the final draft IUPAC Guide on re-covery factors, entitled „Harmo-nized Guidelines for the Use of Recovery Information in Analytical Measurement", that was recently under voting among IUPAC, AOAC International, ISO/REMCO and other contributing organiza-tions.

Forthcoming Workshops

The current programme of work-shops in preparation, organized or co-organized by EURACHEM includes:

• Quality Assurance in Compu-terised Laboratories, Copen-hagen, 11-12 June 1998 (jointly with AOAC Europe Section)
• Accreditation and/or Certifica-tion, Delft, 25-26 June 1998 (jointly with EUROLAB)
• Quality Assurance in R&D, Basle, 9 September 1998 (at 10th Euroanalysis)
• 2nd EURACHEM Workshop on Education and Training, Geesthacht, 27-29 September 1998
• 3rd EURACHEM Workshop on Measurement Uncertainty, Helsinki, 13-15 June 1999
• 3rd EURACHEM Workshop on Traceability, Bratislava, 6-8 September 1999.

EURACHEM´s 10th Anniversary Meeting

EURACHEM will celebrate its 10th anniversary on 13-18 June 1999 in Helsinki, Finland. The programme includes the third Workshop on Measurement Uncertainty, EURACHEM Business Meetings, the 10 Year Anniversary Meeting with in-vitees, a visit to VTT or Finnish chemical industry and a tour to Tallinn.

Cooperations and Liaisons

The Committee reviewed the status of EURACHEM´s cooperations and liaisons with european and inter-national organizations whose activities impinge on the Analytical Chemistry community, e. g. EA (formerly EAL), EUROLAB, EUROMET, ILAC, AOAC International and CCQM. Items currently under consideration included:

• Cooperation with EUROMET concerning traceability in chemical measurement
• Cooperation with AOAC International concerning publication and marketing of EURACHEM Guides
• Participation in ILAC committes and working groups

Working groups

EURACHEM has working groups on

• Measurement uncertainty
• Education and training
• QA in R&D and non-routine analysis (jointly with CITAC)

The Measurement Uncertainty WG (Chair: Alex Williams) is currently revising the Guide „Quantifying Uncertainty in Analytical Measurement", aiming to present the draft 2nd edition at the Measurement Uncertainty Work-shop in June 1999, Helsinki. In addition, the programme of this workshop is in preparation.

The Education and Training WG (Chair: Bernd Neidhart) is cur-rently preparing the final pro-gramme of the forthcoming work-shop in September 1998, Geesthacht, entitled „Current issues in teaching quality in chemical

measurements - Filling the gap bet-ween theory and reality". In addi-tion, a glossary of analytical terms has been prepared „interactively", through publication of draft definitions and multi-lingual trans-lations in the journal Accreditation and Quality Assurance.

The R&D WG (Chair: Karl Cammann) finalized the draft EURACHEM/CITAC Guide on QA in R&D and Non-routine Analysis, to be launched at the forthcoming workshop at Euroanalysis in September 1998, and at the CITAC Symposium on Analytical QA for the 21st Century, to be held in Sydney, 15-16 October 1998.

In addition to these working groups, EURACHEM has interface WGs with EA and EUROLAB, dealing with items of joint concern:

• Proficiency testing (Chair: Tin Win)
• Reference materials (Chair: Tomas Tamberg)

The main task of both groups is to provide guidance and support to laboratories as well as to assessors concerning accreditation. Another major task is to interact with other committees to harmonize work done on these key issues, and minimize duplication.

Currently the options for a joint EURACHEM/EUROMET WG on Traceability are under consideration.

Focal agenda items

The focal technical issue on the agenda of the Full Committee mee-ting has been traceability in chemi-cal measurement. In a series of key-note lectures different views on this controversial issue were outlined: B King and P De Bievre presented complementary views from EURACHEM, and EUROMET, respectively, while M Walsh and E de Leer emphasized practitioners views and practical procedures.

Discussion of this topic will be con-tinued, aiming at an agreed EURACHEM position on traceability in chemical measurement.

As another focal item, continuation of the European Commission´s Standards, Measurement and Testing (SMT) Programme within the 5th Framework Programme cur-rently under development was dis-cussed, based on a presentation by W Raldow. The Committee agreed to join forces with EA and EUROLAB to emphasize the signi-ficance of the SMT programme for EU policy.

A topic of major concern was the revision of ISO/IEC Guide 25, now to become an International Stan-dard ISO 17025. Based on a pre-sentation by E de Leer, various key items were discussed, and the need was identified to arrange input to ISO/CASCO.

Policy issues

The basic strategy paper "EURACHEM 2000" is currently under revision. The first draft revi-sion was discussed in detail at the meeting, to be continued during the year by correspondence.

Needs for action agreed at the meeting include

• extending observer membership
• reconsidering the conditions for full and associate membership

Closure

The meeting was closed by thanking the hosts, in particular Peter Fodor and Eva Thiry. The 1999 Annual Meeting will be hosted by EURACHEM-Finland, in conjunction with EURACHEM´s 10th Anniversary Meeting, to be held on 13-18 June 1998 in Helsinki.

Werner Hässelbarth
EURACHEM Secretariat

EURACHEM´s www site at www.vtt.fi/ket/eurachem advances in attracting the interest of the analytical community. Here are some statistics for a time frame of only one month (05/01/98 - 05/31/98): 2534 successful hits for entire site, 1352 page views, 656 user sessions, 81 hits per day (average), and 21 user sessions per day. The regional distribution is interesting: 22.56 % user sessions from Finland, 67.53 % international user sessions, and 9.90 % user sessions of unknown origin. The fourth part of all sessions is carried out from Finland, where the site is located physically. Who are the users of un-known origin? The Newsletter will keep you informed about EURACHEM´s attractivity on the web!

EUROLAB has now been approved as an AISBL, a legal entity under Belgian law. This will make it easier for EUROLAB to take on contracts from e.g. the European Commission. It has a mailbox office in Brussels, but the normal activities will be handled by the Technical Secretariat which is placed with the President.

At the moment, EUROLAB is setting up its web-site. It will be available at http://www.sp.se/eurolab/.

In cooperation with EURACHEM, EUROLAB arranged a workshop on "Accreditation and/or Certification of Laboratories" in Delft. There were about 70 participants and the discussions were very lively. The somewhat simplified conclusion of the workshop was that large institutes should both be accredited and certified. The docu-mentation from the workshop will probably be issued as a EUROLAB report.

New EUROLAB Reports and Position papers:

• EUROLAB Report No 1/98: "Testing for Electromagnetic Compatibility" Procee-dings, Workshop May 5 and 6, 1997 Milano - Italy
• EUROLAB Report No 2/98: "One-Stop for the Customer" Presentation at the EOTC Workshop One-Stop Testing, Brussels March 4th , 1998. by Claes Bankvall
• EUROLAB Position Paper No 1/98: "On Do-cument CERTIF 96/4: Elements to be consi-dered for a clarification of the meaning of the CE-marking"

For more information please contact the
EURO-LAB Secretariat:
Fax: +46 33 16 50 10,
Tel: +46 16 50 07,
e-mail eurolab@sp.se,
Address: EUROLAB c/o SP, Box 857,
               SE-501 15 BORÅS, SWEDEN

In preparing the next Framework Pro-gramme (FP) the Regulatory Commit-tee of the Standards, Measurements and Testing Programme (RC-SMT) is making a survey on Metrology in Che-mistry in Europe. The ad hoc working group is chaired by Dr M Walsh (IR) and the members of the core group are Dr R Kaarls (NL), Prof C Nieto de Castro (PT), Dr K Carneiro (DK), Dr J Lexow (DE), Prof V Komppa and the project coordinator is Dr B King. Questionnaires asking about the natio-nal situation in altogether 16 sectors have been sent out to member states and the replies are asked latest by July 24, 1998.

Your contributions are kindly reques-ted although it is fully understood by the core group that the time scale is very limited and it coincides with the summer holiday season (plus football). As the EURACHEM Chair I would like to see as many national delegates as possible taking part and contri-buting to this important survey.

EURACHEM and EUROMET are ac-tively developing collaboration in che-mical metrology and the final form will become clearer in the near future. It will be discussed during the next EURACHEM Executive Meeting late September this year in Germany.

There are numerous national and other activities in Europe. As an example, Finland is preparing a new strategy for metrology where chemistry will be in-cluded. There is also an earlier natio-nal strategy paper for chemical metro-logy. Nordic countries have made a joint effort in a NORDTEST project to create reference laboratory systems for environmental measurements.

5th Framework Programme - Great Challenge

There are measurement related activities in all of the key actions of the coming 5th FP.

On the other hand, there will be no separate SMT, M&T or BCR-type activities like it was before. This is a great challenge for the whole measurement community, even more for chemistry where the metrological system and fundamental ideas are just developing.

We all should do our best to get national and international publicity and basic support for our chemical way of thinking. One of the key issues that has to be addressed with priority are laboratory intercomparisons and certified reference materials.

BCR Office will celebrate its 25th anniversary on November 3-4, 1998, in Brussels. The extensive work done so far is too important to be diluted in the future.

Veikko Komppa
EURACHEM Chair

Our international sister organization CITAC has found a nice solution to their problem of covering secretariat´s expenditure. They have introduced an annual membership subscription fee of 200 GBP for CITAC members. This a minimum figure and members are invited to pay higher annual fees on a voluntary basis. Although the fee covers only part of the secretariat´s costs, it is nevertheless better than nothing. I am seriously asking you to think about this kind of solution for EURACHEM's similar financial problems. A small annual fee could solve our problems of printing/mailing the Newsletters and maintaining the website.

Veikko Komppa
EURACHEM Chair

Your opinion is very welcome: Hot line is open, so email or fax to EURACHEM Secretariat.

At the occasion of the 39th IUPAC General Assembly, Geneva, Switzer-land, August 1997 the following terms of reference have been accepted by the WP members and endorsed by the IUPAC Analytical Chemistry Division Committee:

1. To harmonize the general appro-aches on the quality assurance req-uirements for analytical laboratories between different IUPAC Divisions and Commissions.
2. To collect information on all as-pects of quality assurance, quality ma-nagement, quality systems, total quali-ty management and conformity assess-ment of quality systems currently in practice in analytical laboratories.
3. To harmonize requirements on quality assurance and quality ma-nagement systems in analytical laboratories set out by other international, regional or national organizations (ISO, WHO, FAO, IAEA, CEN, AOAC International, NATA, EURA-CHEM, CITAC, etc.).
4. To provide a channel of commu-nication between IUPAC and ISO/ REMCO (ISO Committee for Refe-rence Materials) concerning availabili-ty, needs, production and use of refe-rence materials.
5. To assist analytical laboratories in Developing Countries to achieve their desired quality of work through proper application of international standards and guides related to the fields above. This work is to be carried out in close co-operation with other in-ternational organizations, especially ISO/DEVCO (ISO Committee on De-veloping Countries).
6. To provide support in scientific matters to ISO.

Although the IUPAC WP, known to many scientists as the IUPAC/ISO/AOAC working party, has at the moment for-mally 26 members it is opened for co-operation with other organizations and individuals. According to its interna-tional character, the aim of the IUPAC WP is to obtain a large input from all over the world and to produce guide-lines or protocols that could be applied by analytical che-mists in order to produce comparable analytical results.

The following three projects are the core activity for the next two years period: · Protocol for in-house method validation · Compilation and clarification of quality-assurance rela-ted nomenclature · Description of chemical test methods

Further information can be obtained from:
Dr. AleÓ FAJGELJ IAEA,
Agency's Laboratories Seibersdorf
A-2444 Seibersdorf, Austria
Tel/Fax: +43 (1) 2060 28233/ +43 (1) 2060 28222
E-mail: A.FAJGELJ@IAEA.ORG

Another sad message concerns the decease of Prof Michael Widmer, the chairman of EUROANALYSIS X, Basle. He was a very active member of WPAC being highly respected for his expertise in the field of micro total analysis systems.

Under the presidency of Dr M Ehrat, our Swiss colleagues were energetically continuing the organization of EURO-ANALYSIS X, the most prestigeous European congress on analytical chemistry, which will be held in Basle, September 6 - 11, 1998 in the Convention Center Basel. An interesting spectrum of plenary lectures on topics like genomic analysis, elucidation of biomolecular interactions, quality assurance and new perspectives for traditional methods will be offered. Discussion will be heavily encouraged through the organization of many workshops on topics of high actual interest such as the potential of miniaturized analysis systems, artificial noses, chemo- and biosensors, education, and the importance of standards and methods in quality systems (see also in this issue: EURACHEM workshop during EUROANALYSIS X).

Education as well as quality assurance and accreditation are of strategic importance for the DAC. The following key issues are addressed: · supply of scientific guidance to quality in daily practice · set-up of a structurized system for analytical experimen-tation, having in view the education of analytical che-mists at universities and technical colleges · improvement of quality-matter-teaching programmes. Problem-oriented training in projects with emphasis on the above mentioned subjects and quality-sensitive conduct of education could be an answer to the question how to assure the formation of (analytical) chemists able to fullfill their tasks in a quality-conscious environment.

At the moment, small teams of DAC members are elabora-ting the „25 Years History of the Division" and a „Who´s Who in Analytical Chemistry in Europe". The growing importance of co-operation between European societies committed to analytical chemistry is obvious. DAC is prepared to put all its efforts into the propagation of ana-lytical chemistry for society´s benefit. Our co-operation with EURACHEM right from the start is a good example of how science and practice can work together.

Bauke te Nijenhuis,
Secretary DAC/FECS