With the opening of this centre, the Alava Campus seeks to serve the scientific research in Social Sciences and Humanities, an area of knowledge with considerable presence in this Campus.

The Alava Campus already had the Lascaray Ikergunea Research Centre devoted to Experimental and Health Sciences. With the incorporation and implementation of this new centre, Vitoria-Gasteiz now has high-level research infrastructures within a wide range of branches of knowledge, a circumstance contributing to the economic and cultural development of the environment.

The Micaela Portilla Centre is destined to be the research landmark in the Basque Country, as at present there is no centre of similar characteristics. In this centre, the excellence research groups regarding the abovementioned scientific disciplines will be able to have their own spaces and common laboratories, as well as infrastructures and services that will enable quality research.