Access to ICTS users

Unique Scientific and Technical Infrastructures (ICTSs) are infrastructures with unique facilities offered as a service to the entire national and international scientific and technological community.

ICTSs offer a percentage of the capacity of their essential services in the Competitive Open Access system for use by researchers in the public and private, national and international sectors, with the support of the technical and administrative staff of the ICTS. Access to the use of the infrastructure is regulated by a public "Access Protocol" that defines the mechanism and criteria for accessing the infrastructure. Competitive Open Access is characterised by the fact that the quality of the R&D activities to be carried out in the infrastructures must be verified and that access requests are prioritised according to objective criteria.

The access costs are borne by the users (typically covered by grants funding the corresponding R&D&I projects, particularly expenses that are eligible in calls for proposals by the State Research Agency) or the infrastructure in those specific areas of research where this has been established.