In recent years, researchers and industrial communities have been increasingly interested in Product Lifecycle Management (PLM); hence the product lifecycles have received considerable attention. The general features of the lifecycles are well known, however the special character of the equipment in research environment: the particularly long life, experimental character, complexity and interdisciplinary, are still not completely understood. The paper analyses the specific requirements and describes a common approach to lifecycle of equipment in research environment such as large-scale scientific facilities generating ionizing radiation. Based on the key findings a lifecycle model is developed. In order to develop this model, research includes a case study carried out in CERN (Geneva, Switzerland), analysis based on PLM, SE product development framework and discussion on the basis of the results. The research was done within the PURESAFE research project, which is funded under the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme Marie Curie Actions.