National

Chemistry at the service of humankind and its environment :
Montpellier Universities 1 and 2, the CNRS (French National Research Agency), the CEA (French Atomic Energy Commission) and the National Graduate School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Montpellier (ENSCM) decided to unite their forces in terms of teaching, research, and promoting their activities by creating the Balard Chemistry Centre for Sustainable Development. This creation, made official by the founding agreement signed on 19/12/2007, is a significant political act, supported by both the Languedoc-Roussillon Regional Government and the National Government. Setting up a LabEx (laboratory for Excellence) a project labelled "CheMISyst" and accepted by the government in 2011, bringing together all the forces in Montpellier on one site to enable us to share our technological equipment (P.A.C.), improving our synergy in some common scientific objectives at the horizon of 2020, and making our exchanges with the Marcoule CEA site even more effective are among the ambitious objectives justifying this project.

The Languedoc-Roussillon region boasts an intellectual potential that puts it in the same league as the most dynamic regions in Europe. In terms of number of researchers, it is ranked number 5 in France, it came in 3rd in the Research Ministry’s competition for founding innovative companies, is ranked number 4 among the national incubators in terms of the number of projects hatched, and is 2nd in terms of the number of new companies founded.