Over the last years the 177Lu radioisotope has attracted great interest for the use in therapeutic and diagnostic procedures simultaneously, being what is now called a theranostic radioisotope, with outstanding results in prostate and neuroendocrine cancer. There are mainly two ways of producing this radioisotope, by direct neutron capture in a 176Lu target (the ???direct route") or by irradiating a 176Yb sample, producing 177Yb that will then decay to 177Lu (also referred as the ???indirect route???). In this work, the technical feasibility of producing 177Lu in the IEA-R1 nuclear research reactor via the direct route was assessed, and the specific activity that could be obtained was estimated both experimentally and theoretically.