ILL offers neutron measurements to the scientific community employing 39 instruments installed on the existing source of neutrons at ILL, 29 operational instruments managed by ILL and 10 instruments handled by external consortia. Each piece of the instrument suite is designed to be state-of-the-art in each particular research field and undergoes major as well as continuous upgrades to fulfil the world-reference role. ILL’s staff have expertise and experience in neutron production (reactor physics, reactor design and operation, cold and hot source design and operation), neutron beam delivery (beam‐tubes, neutron guides including supermirror guides), neutron optics (collimators, monochromators, neutron velocity selectors and choppers), neutron detection and the complete range of neutron instruments for scientific research and sample environment. 1.400 researchers from over 40 countries visit ILL each year, performing over 850 experiments and producing about 600 publications that put ILL at the leading edge of neutron science covering all the relevant scientific domains: soft condensed matter (14%), nuclear and particle physics (5%), biology (9%), chemistry (12%), materials science (20%), physics including magnetism and nanoscience (36%), other (instrumentation, cultural heritage, environment; 4%). ILL’s Industrial Liaison Unit provides a single and specialised point of contact for any potential user from industry and services, offering industrial clients a choice of specific modes of access ranging from quick-access proprietary research or a combination with academic access for maximum innovation.

ILL adopts a pioneering data access policy to allow the access and treatment of the data generated at the institute, following FAIR data principles. After initial priority access to the data for the scientist(s) carrying out the experiment, the data is publicly accessible and reusable. ILL also endorsed the principles of the EOSC Declaration of 10 July 2017.