An Associate Laboratory is composed of one or more R&D units and must sustainably ensure three fundamental criteria: responding to public policy challenges in the scientific, health, social, environmental and economic domains; promoting scientific or technical career paths for PhD holders, as well as the ability to attract talent to Portugal; and the capacity to diversify funding sources and increase the attraction of funding from the European Union or other international entities for R&D activities in Portugal.

Associate Laboratories are formally consulted by the Government regarding the definition of programmes and instruments for national scientific and technological policy.

The Associate Laboratory status is granted by order of the member of the Government responsible for the area of science and technology for a period of up to 10 years, and aims to encourage the aggregation and organisation of human and material resources with the quality and scale required to respond to specific objectives of national scientific and technological policy. The FCT is responsible for the evaluation processes of proposals for the creation or renewal of Associate Laboratories.