In addition to industry and society, science too represents a "customer" for metrology. Basic research borrows from the science of measurements the experimental capabilities and know-how to obtain high-precision measurements. On the other hand, metrology improves its measuring instruments through basic research.

For this reason, INRiM is committed to strengthening its collaborations with other research institutes and the academic world.

The Institute's contribution to basic research ranges, for example, from quantum physics to the determination of the fundamental constants of physics, from the characterization of new materials to the development of advanced spectroscopic techniques, from the computational processing of data to the identification of specific properties of matter.