The Soft Lab, run by Amable Bernabé, has hosted from Monday, 7 October, to Wednesday, 9 October a course on "Characterization techniques for particulate materials". The course has counted with 12 participants from different CSIC centers (including ICMAB, IBM-CNM, ICM, IQAC...) and has introduced the participants to different techniques to characterize nanoparticles and other particulate matter, including the basic fundamentals, sample preparation, practical examples and results interpretation.