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| CNRS Unit 852 | |
|---|---|
| Name | CNRS Unit 852 |
| Established | 1980s |
| Type | Research unit |
| City | Lyon |
| Country | France |
| Affiliations | CNRS |
CNRS Unit 852 is a French research unit within the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique linked to institutions in Lyon and Grenoble, engaged in interdisciplinary studies spanning physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering. The unit has contributed to fields associated with universities and grandes écoles such as Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, INSA Lyon, École centrale de Lyon and maintains ties with national organizations including CEA, Institut Pasteur, and Inserm. Its work intersects with European programs and agencies including European Research Council, Horizon 2020, and European Molecular Biology Laboratory.
The unit traces roots to laboratories that emerged after collaborations among researchers affiliated with CNRS, Université Lyon I, ENS Lyon and industrial partners like Renault, Saint-Gobain, and Schneider Electric. Founding personnel included scientists who had trained at institutions such as Collège de France, Sorbonne University, École Polytechnique and who had postdoctoral experience at places like Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, Max Planck Society institutes and Imperial College London. Over decades the unit interacted with major projects and events including ties to CERN experiments, participation in COP21-related studies, collaborations reminiscent of work at Bell Labs, and involvement in networks around European Space Agency programs. The unit evolved through reorganizations similar to those that affected units associated with CNRS UMR 5587, CNRS UMR 5221 and partnerships modeled after collaborations with INRIA and CEA-LETI.
Research themes span materials science, nanotechnology, soft matter, biophysics, catalysis and environmental chemistry. Laboratories within the unit mirror structures found at Laboratoire de Physique, Laboratoire de Chimie, Laboratoire de Biologie, and engineering platforms akin to Plateforme Technologique nodes. Scientific agendas reference methods developed at Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, techniques from ESRF, instrumentation comparable to ILL, and imaging approaches used at EMBL. Teams study interfaces relevant to Airbus composites, TotalEnergies catalysis, L'Oréal formulations and biomaterials with relevance to Sanofi and BioMérieux. Experimental approaches build on methodologies from Brookhaven National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and theoretical frameworks influenced by work at Princeton University, California Institute of Technology, and ETH Zurich.
The unit is organized into thematic groups, technical platforms and administrative services mirroring governance models seen at CNRS Institute for Physics, INSERM Unit administrations and Université Grenoble Alpes institutes. Leadership rotated among directors with academic profiles connected to Académie des sciences, laureates of prizes such as the Légion d'honneur, the CNRS Silver Medal, and awards comparable to the European Research Council Starting Grant. Administrative oversight involves coordination with entities like Ministère de l'Enseignement supérieur, de la Recherche et de l'Innovation, local authorities including Métropole de Lyon and university presidents from Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 and Université Grenoble Alpes.
The unit maintains partnerships with industrial and academic actors such as TotalEnergies, Arkema, Safran, Dassault Aviation, Schneider Electric, universities including University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, Harvard University, Yale University, University of Tokyo, and national labs like CNES, CEA, INRIA and IFP Energies nouvelles. It participates in European networks including COST, EIT RawMaterials, EIT Health and projects funded through Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions and Horizon Europe. International collaborations involve research centers like Riken, Weizmann Institute of Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences institutes, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, and Australian National University.
The unit contributed to projects on advanced battery materials related to work by teams at Toyota Research Institute, studies of catalysis with parallels to Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion, investigations in biomaterials reflecting collaborations with Institut Pasteur and translational studies akin to those led by INSERM groups. Publications have appeared in journals such as Nature, Science, Nature Materials, Advanced Materials, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Physical Review Letters, PNAS, Angewandte Chemie, Chemical Reviews, ACS Nano, Nature Nanotechnology, and Soft Matter. Research outputs cite methods resembling those in papers from American Chemical Society, Royal Society of Chemistry, and large collaborations like those associated with Large Hadron Collider detector teams.
Facilities include cleanrooms, electron microscopy suites (transmission and scanning EM) comparable to resources at ESRF and ILL, spectroscopy platforms (NMR, FTIR, Raman) similar to those at CNRS National Facilities, and fabrication workshops used by partners like CEA-LETI and INRIA. Access to computing resources links to national infrastructures such as GENCI and European infrastructures like PRACE. The unit's biocontainment and cell-culture labs align with standards of Institut Pasteur and INSERM platforms, and materials testing facilities support industrial validation with partners including Saint-Gobain and Alstom.
Researchers affiliated with the unit have received honors including the CNRS Silver Medal, the CNRS Bronze Medal, fellowships from the European Research Council, prizes awarded by Académie des sciences, grants from Agence Nationale de la Recherche, and distinctions akin to L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science awards. Collaborative projects have been selected for national excellence programs such as Investissements d'Avenir and recognized in European funding instruments including Horizon Europe and COST actions.
Category:Research institutes in France