The IAEA is seeking to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world. The Agency shall encourage and assist research and make provisions for materials, services, equipment and facilities to meet the needs of its Member States. The Agency shall establish, apply and administer international safeguards designed to ensure, within its abilities, that special fissionable and other materials, services, facilities, equipment and information are only used for peaceful purposes. Within this context, the Mission of the Agency's Laboratories at Seibersdorf and Vienna is:

In the field of international safeguards: to provide analytical data and services, in support of Agency inspections, which ensure the credibility of the operation of international safeguards and the monitoring in compliance with the signatories of the Safeguards Agreements to the commitments made to the Agency and the International Community;

In the field of nuclear science, technologies and their applications: through technology transfer, services and research, to contribute to the implementation of the Agency's programmes on sustainable development by the effective use of nuclear sciences in monitoring of the environment, food and agriculture, human health, industry, physical and chemical sciences, and the management of water resources.

The Nuclear Spectroscopy and Application Laboratory (NSAL) in Seibersdorf, Austria, is part of the Physics Section, which belongs to the IAEA Division of Physical and Chemical Sciences (NAPC) of the Department of Nuclear Applications (NA) . The main tasks carried out by the NSAL are focused on provision of training in XRF analysis, direct technical support to the laboratories in Member States, cooperation through bilateral agreements with other XRF groups, extension of the applicability range and improvements in accuracy, and precision of the XRF techniques. The NSAL provides also routine analytical services to other Units of the IAEA Laboratories, supports development of compact / portable XRF spectrometers and data analysis software / hardware for XRF systems. The Laboratory directly cooperates with other research / developer groups and users of X-ray spectrometric methods in the Agency Member States.