Laboratório Nacional de Engenharia Civil (LNEC), www.lnec.pt,  is a public research and consultancy institute encompassing all branches of Civil and Materials Engineering, Architecture and Social Sciences. It is one of the leading European organizations in its field. It has a long experience in laboratory and field research work, physical and mathematical modeling and seismic vulnerability evaluation of structures, as well as an assessment of safety conditions of civil works. In the 1980s it was the first institution in Portugal to establish a research group dedicated to the conservation of stone and other materials in cultural heritage and in 2013 it was a founding partner of the Portuguese research infrastructure IPERION CH.pt dedicated exclusively to Heritage Science and listed in the Portuguese Roadmap. Besides its research and consultancy activities, LNEC also organizes international symposia and courses to promote the diffusion of specialized knowledge and receives trainees from Europe and other continents for apprenticeships. Work-force: ca. 500 of which half are university graduates and 30% are PhDs often with management capacities and experience. LNEC participated in a substantial number of EU-funded research and access projects and is home to a major European experimental infrastructure: its 3-D shaking table used for studies in the protection of structures against earthquakes.