Formerly known a Quality Assurance Group UK (QAG UK) and the British Association of Research Quality Assurance (BARQA), the association changed its name to RQA in December 2012 in order to be able to act in a more global role.
The association is made up of nine active committees: RQA regulatory collaborates with its US counterpart SQA and attends SQA's annual meeting along with running a global conference every three years with both Society of Quality Assurance and Japan Society of Quality Assurance.
The association also has a memorandum of understanding with JSQA (Japan), SQA (USA), GQMA (Germany), SoFAq (France) and SARQA (Sweden).
[1] Members of RQA committees regulatory attend and contribute to stakeholder meetings run by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in the UK and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in Europe.
The GCLP guidelines was originally produced in 2002 by RQA committee members with the purpose of providing guidance on the quality system required in laboratories that undertake the analysis of samples from clinical trials.