The Research Laboratory on Test Systems (Laboratório de Investigação em Sistemas de Teste), formed in late 2002, is a spin-off of the PTSE group from FEUP, which started in late 1992. The leading reason for starting LABORIS lays on the ISEP's vision of promoting and sponsoring centers of excellence in specific areas of Engineering, able to conduct applied research activities, of recognised national and international merit. LABORIS is an actual implementation result of such a vision, in the area of test technologies and systems, with extension to related areas, such as: debugging, dependability, and fault injection, among others.
From the previous context it is possible to state the LABORIS mission, based on four principles:

- To propose and carry on R&D projects on its areas, either alone or in consortium.

- To seek and establish partnerships with other high-qualified R&D groups on centres of excellences.

- To educate ISEP's pre-graduate students in the area of test technologies and systems.

- To generaly support ISEP's staff involved in R&D activities related to test.