Rijnhuizen is one of the three research institutes of the Foundation for fundamental research on matter (FOM), the funding organization for physics in the Netherlands. In addition to these three institutes, FOM supports a large fraction of the physics research at Dutch universities. The primary goal of FOM is to promote fundamental research on matter for the advancement of science. The research funded by FOM is nationally coordinated in some 100 comprehensive research programmes, so-called 'FOM programmes'.

The FOM Institute for Plasma Physics Rijnhuizen is the national home base for fusion research and exploits the free electron infrared laser FELIX/Felice, an international users facility. Also advanced multilayer optics for extreme ultraviolet radiation are developed for the computer chip industry.