Research Core Facilities

The Research Core Facilities of INL are a centralised infrastructure that provides access to advanced equipment, techniques, and expertise. It operates as an open-access facility and offers researchers from academia and the industrial sector a portfolio of services ranging from design to fabrication and characterisation.

Electron Microscopy and X-Rays

Material Testing

Micro and Nanofabrication

Nanophotonics & Bioimaging

The Research Core Facilities are scientifically directed by a Steering Committee composed of INL experts in various areas. The Steering Committee establishes the long-term strategic direction of the facilities, ensuring these operate effectively, meet the needs of the users, and align with the institution’s missions and goals.

Steering Committee Members

Paulo Ferreira

Committee Chair

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Ricardo Ferreira

Committee Member

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Begoña Espiña

Committee Member

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Pedro Alpuim

Committee Member

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With cutting-edge scientific instrumentation and a technical team available to support your needs, the facilities operate on an open-access basis. Either with a guided self-service approach or a full service performed by our team, your design, fabrication, and characterisation needs are met as per your specifications.

Besides sporadic access, we also offer competitive packages designed for long-term users as well as reduced fees for entities from our Member States (Portugal and Spain).

The Research Core Facilities are certified according to ISO 9001:2015 standard and the ISO 13485:2016 in Medical Devices.

You can virtually visit INL facilities here.

User Access

Requests will be assessed by the respective Facility Manager at INL who will provide a Statement of Work to be accepted by the Institution.

After the conclusion of the request application and procedure, facility users will receive an email with personal credentials to access INL’s internal Laboratory Information Management System. This platform supports the management of all equipment, including training requests, bookings, logging and billing.
All users must request a license and complete training before being allowed to use any INL equipment.

Training requirements for set for each instrument. To schedule training, the user must apply for the respective license under the tools menu on the instrument detail page (which can be found by selecting the instrument from the list). The tool instructor will immediately receive a notification and schedule the first training session with the user.
Once training is completed, the instructor will grant the license for that specific equipment. At this point, the user is eligible to use the instrument.

For booking (mandatory) please follow the instructions for each instrument. After using the instrument, the user must fill out the log form.
All users will be billed according to the number of hours used in each piece of equipment, based on INL’s current table of prices (available upon request).

If assistance is required, costs with personnel will also be charged. All users will be billed for the total number of hours booked unless the user cancels it more than one day in advance. The users will not be billed for a reservation if the equipment is down.