Good Research Practice (GRP) or Good Scientific Practice (GSP)
Good scientific practice is promoted by many academic institutions, companies and funding agencies. For instance, the DFG (German Science Society) has a publicly available document on “Safeguarding good scientific practice”. Similarly, the WHO (World Health Organization) has developed suggestions on “Quality practices in Basic Biomedical Research”.
However, there is no common standard for GSP combining the most important recommendations. Additionally, there is no system in place for providing standardized training on GSP or for performing an assessment of whether the GSP guidelines are followed.
There are areas of biomedical science that are subject to strict regulation and these areas have developed and comply with the guidelines commonly known as Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) or Good Clinical Practice (GCP).
In the non-regulated environment, there are also examples of quality-based policies being developed and followed. In several cases, scientists voluntary accept and follow such guidelines driven by the understanding of the long-term benefits associated with improved research quality. For example, many organizations, academic and industrial, have chosen to undergo a voluntary assessment and accreditation by AAALAC (http://www.aaalac.org).
The need for development and implementation of GSP standards is especially important for the areas of non-regulated biomedical research where data have commercial value or can be used to develop products with commercial value such as pharmaceutical drug discovery and development.