@article{9911, abstract = {A modern day light microscope has evolved from a tool devoted to making primarily empirical observations to what is now a sophisticated , quantitative device that is an integral part of both physical and life science research. Nowadays, microscopes are found in nearly every experimental laboratory. However, despite their prevalent use in capturing and quantifying scientific phenomena, neither a thorough understanding of the principles underlying quantitative imaging techniques nor appropriate knowledge of how to calibrate, operate and maintain microscopes can be taken for granted. This is clearly demonstrated by the well-documented and widespread difficulties that are routinely encountered in evaluating acquired data and reproducing scientific experiments. Indeed, studies have shown that more than 70% of researchers have tried and failed to repeat another scientist's experiments, while more than half have even failed to reproduce their own experiments. One factor behind the reproducibility crisis of experiments published in scientific journals is the frequent underreporting of imaging methods caused by a lack of awareness and/or a lack of knowledge of the applied technique. Whereas quality control procedures for some methods used in biomedical research, such as genomics (e.g. DNA sequencing, RNA-seq) or cytometry, have been introduced (e.g. ENCODE), this issue has not been tackled for optical microscopy instrumentation and images. Although many calibration standards and protocols have been published, there is a lack of awareness and agreement on common standards and guidelines for quality assessment and reproducibility. In April 2020, the QUality Assessment and REProducibility for instruments and images in Light Microscopy (QUAREP-LiMi) initiative was formed. This initiative comprises imaging scientists from academia and industry who share a common interest in achieving a better understanding of the performance and limitations of microscopes and improved quality control (QC) in light microscopy. The ultimate goal of the QUAREP-LiMi initiative is to establish a set of common QC standards, guidelines, metadata models and tools, including detailed protocols, with the ultimate aim of improving reproducible advances in scientific research. This White Paper (1) summarizes the major obstacles identified in the field that motivated the launch of the QUAREP-LiMi initiative; (2) identifies the urgent need to address these obstacles in a grassroots manner, through a community of stakeholders including, researchers, imaging scientists, bioimage analysts, bioimage informatics developers, corporate partners, funding agencies, standards organizations, scientific publishers and observers of such; (3) outlines the current actions of the QUAREP-LiMi initiative and (4) proposes future steps that can be taken to improve the dissemination and acceptance of the proposed guidelines to manage QC. To summarize, the principal goal of the QUAREP-LiMi initiative is to improve the overall quality and reproducibility of light microscope image data by introducing broadly accepted standard practices and accurately captured image data metrics.}, author = {Nelson, Glyn and Boehm, Ulrike and Bagley, Steve and Bajcsy, Peter and Bischof, Johanna and Brown, Claire M. and Dauphin, Aurélien and Dobbie, Ian M. and Eriksson, John E. and Faklaris, Orestis and Fernandez-Rodriguez, Julia and Ferrand, Alexia and Gelman, Laurent and Gheisari, Ali and Hartmann, Hella and Kukat, Christian and Laude, Alex and Mitkovski, Miso and Munck, Sebastian and North, Alison J. and Rasse, Tobias M. and Resch-Genger, Ute and Schuetz, Lucas C. and Seitz, Arne and Strambio-De-Castillia, Caterina and Swedlow, Jason R. and Alexopoulos, Ioannis and Aumayr, Karin and Avilov, Sergiy and Bakker, Gert Jan and Bammann, Rodrigo R. and Bassi, Andrea and Beckert, Hannes and Beer, Sebastian and Belyaev, Yury and Bierwagen, Jakob and Birngruber, Konstantin A. and Bosch, Manel and Breitlow, Juergen and Cameron, Lisa A. and Chalfoun, Joe and Chambers, James J. and Chen, Chieh Li and Conde-Sousa, Eduardo and Corbett, Alexander D. and Cordelieres, Fabrice P. and Nery, Elaine Del and Dietzel, Ralf and Eismann, Frank and Fazeli, Elnaz and Felscher, Andreas and Fried, Hans and Gaudreault, Nathalie and Goh, Wah Ing and Guilbert, Thomas and Hadleigh, Roland and Hemmerich, Peter and Holst, Gerhard A. and Itano, Michelle S. and Jaffe, Claudia B. and Jambor, Helena K. and Jarvis, Stuart C. and Keppler, Antje and Kirchenbuechler, David and Kirchner, Marcel and Kobayashi, Norio and Krens, Gabriel and Kunis, Susanne and Lacoste, Judith and Marcello, Marco and Martins, Gabriel G. and Metcalf, Daniel J. and Mitchell, Claire A. and Moore, Joshua and Mueller, Tobias and Nelson, Michael S. and Ogg, Stephen and Onami, Shuichi and Palmer, Alexandra L. and Paul-Gilloteaux, Perrine and Pimentel, Jaime A. and Plantard, Laure and Podder, Santosh and Rexhepaj, Elton and Royon, Arnaud and Saari, Markku A. and Schapman, Damien and Schoonderwoert, Vincent and Schroth-Diez, Britta and Schwartz, Stanley and Shaw, Michael and Spitaler, Martin and Stoeckl, Martin T. and Sudar, Damir and Teillon, Jeremie and Terjung, Stefan and Thuenauer, Roland and Wilms, Christian D. and Wright, Graham D. and Nitschke, Roland}, issn = {1365-2818}, journal = {Journal of Microscopy}, number = {1}, pages = {56--73}, publisher = {Wiley}, title = {{QUAREP-LiMi: A community-driven initiative to establish guidelines for quality assessment and reproducibility for instruments and images in light microscopy}}, doi = {10.1111/jmi.13041}, volume = {284}, year = {2021}, }