## 1 Introduction  
In the past decade, terawatt, table top laser systems based upon chirped pulse amplification (CPA) [1] have been successfully used in many laboratories worldwide to explore the laser-matter interaction regime in the ultra-short, ultraintense domain. The wealth of new results thus obtained have generated entirely new fields of research including novel X-ray and \(\gamma\)-ray sources and laser-driven acceleration of particles. Intense CPA pulses are also considered for the fast-ignition [2] in inertial fusion energy and for the investigation of warm dense matter physics, also through the interaction with solid targets [3,4]. These results are now providing a strong motivation for the development of new laser infrastructures like HiPER [5] and ELI [6]. Laser-plasma acceleration [7] is certainly the area in which the most exciting results have been obtained. In particular, laser wakefield accelerator (LWFA) [8] has been explored as the most promising technique for the acceleration of electron bunches and takes advantage of the high longitudinal electric fields supported by longitudinal electron waves in a plasma. In the LWFA, electrons are trapped in the plasma wave that has a phase velocity very close to the speed of light and gain energy as long as they are in phase with the accelerating region of the field. Recent experiments [9, 10, 11] show that quasi-monoenergetic electron bunches can be accelerated from the background electron plasma population up to high (\(>\)100 MeV) energies. Numerical simulations [12, 13, 14] show that for sufficiently short and intense laser pulses, the so-called bubble regime of LWFA is activated in which a single accelerating cavity is produced and effective trapping of background electrons occurs. A similar scheme has been used in the demonstration of GeV acceleration of electrons [15]. Most of these experiments require very high laser intensity and demanding installations, but compact laser systems can also be successfully used to drive efficient laser-plasma electron sources with properties ideal for a wide range of applications. Recent theoretical works [16] indicate that with a proper choice of laser, plasma, and injection parameters, the acceleration of electron bunches with small energy spread and short bunch length can occur starting from initially large bunch length and energy spread. By considering that the energy of an accelerated electron bunch can be increased by multiple collinear or non-collinear [17] injections in plasma channels, the stability of the injection and the reduction of the laser energy required for the production of the initial electrons become the key issues of this process. Recently, laser-driven electron acceleration at moderate laser intensities (power \(<\) 10 TW) [18, 19, 20] and application of accelerated bunches to nuclear physics relevant conditions [21] have been demonstrated. In this paper we illustrate laser-plasma acceleration studies based upon self-injection, in progress at two intense laser laboratories currently operating in Italy in both interaction regimes outlined above. The Intense Laser Irradiation Laboratory (ILIL), located at the CNR research campus in Pisa, has been operating for more than a decade in the field of intense lasers and also has an ongoing investigation focused on biomedical applications of table-top laser-plasma electron sources. We describe the experimental conditions on which plasma acceleration at ILIL is achieved using a moderate power laser system, to achieve acceleration of electron bunches with high charge and acceptable energy spread suitable for biomedical applications. The FLAME (Frascati Laser for Acceleration and Multidisciplinary Experiments) installation, located at the INFN Frascati National Laboratories and now part of the SPARCLAB initiative, has been established recently in a wider experimental area dedicated to explore all flavors of plasma acceleration, including self-injection, external injection, particle driven acceleration, _etc_.