INESC TEC is a private non-profit research association, working in the interface between the academic world and the industrial and service companies as well as the public administration. The areas of activity of INESC TEC are centred on the general Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, but extended, from one side, to terrain covered by Applied Physics and from the other side to what is known as Industrial Engineering and Management as well as Innovation. The twelve Research Groups are mapped in four Research Clusters: Power and Energy, Communications and Devices, Industry and Innovation, Computer Science. Presently, one counts about 760 people working in INESC TEC, among which 240 holding a PhD degree, with several distinct levels of commitment.

INESC TEC participates in the SafeCloud project through the High Assurance Software Laboratory (HASLab), a research group based at Universidade do Minho working on formal methods, information security, and dependable distributed systems. INESC TEC has a large experience in European projects having participated in over 100 European projects. The HASLab team has coordinated the GORDA FP6 project, was a partner in the CumuloNimbo and CACE FP7 projects and is currently involved in the CoherentPaaS, PRACTICE and LeanBigdata FP7 projects.