New Eurachem Guide on Measurement Uncertainty

Eurachem has published a new guide titled “Evaluation of measurement uncertainty from in-house precision and recovery data” (First Edition, 2026). The document was produced by a joint Eurachem/CITAC Working Group and edited by Ricardo Bettencourt da Silva.

Scope and key content of the new guide

According to the foreword, the document “is written as a tutorial with detailed explanations of the reasoning and limitations of the options, ensuring the document’s educational value while offering multiple ways to optimise measurement uncertainty. Application examples illustrate how to apply both the simplest algorithms and the more complex formulas necessary to handle cases where uncertainty needs to be evaluated over a wide concentration range based on the analysis of a large diversity of reference materials.”

In terms of scope, the guide focuses on a simplified evaluation of measurement uncertainty in chemistry based on recovery and precision studies performed during in-house validation of a fully developed measurement method, or on data generated during verification of standard methods. It is intended for cases where laboratories have intermediate precision data across the working range and trueness information from recovery studies (e.g., reference materials or spiking studies).

Structure

The main part of the guide is structured as follows:

• The main stages of decisions based on measurements
• Specifying the measurand and the measurement method
• Specifying the basic measurement model
• Identification of the sources of uncertainty
• Specifying the measurement model
• Quantification of the uncertainty components
• Combination of the uncertainty components
• Expansion of the combined standard uncertainty
• Assessment and optimisation of the measurement uncertainty
• Reporting measurement results

In addition, the guide includes several appendices:

• Appendix A: Variation of measurement precision in the working range
• Appendix B: Application examples
• Appendix C: Allowance for acceptable recovery intervals

Download

The English edition is available for download from the Eurachem website