Attracting new molecular chemistry students is the challenge facing an INTERREG project coordinated in Caen by Thierry Lequeux, a member of the Laboratory for Molecular and Thio-organic Chemistry (LCMT – CNRS-ENSICAEN-UCBN Laboratory).

Brits and Normans together! With an aim to creating a shared research and education area, a few determined individuals from either shore of the Channel have successfully developed a European INTERREG project. “We already knew each other. Over several years, via our biennial conferences, relationships gradually developed with our English colleagues,” recalls Professor Thierry Lequeux, in charge of the project and a member of Ensicaen’s Laboratory for Molecular and Thio-organic Chemistry (LCMT – CNRS-ENSICAEN-UCBN).
“The idea was for us to assert ourselves whilst creating something really new. And this new European area for molecular chemistry research and education, open to both students and businesses, could well prove to be our trump card.” The project, entitled, IS CE-Chem (Innovation in Synthesis, Culture and Entrepreneurial Spirit in Chemistry) is consequently aimed at teaching and training Master II and PhD students via a network of universities and research laboratories(1).
Spurred by encounters, emails and other undertakings, the project, in gestation for months now, will finally see the day at the start of 2009 university year. The first scientific meetings were held last May (leading to new Franco-British scientific projects) and the programme’s first selected candidates will also be arriving in September. “Trans-Channel student and lecturer exchanges will enable us to develop projects at the cutting edge of science and technology; English lessons and bilateral scientific exchanges, with the involvement of 110 researchers, will offer students a truly atypical and quite unique profile in the field of applied chemistry,” adds the project leader. This ambitious project has been awarded 5 years of ERDF funding, within the framework of the INTERREG IV A category (see associated article), totalling some 6.4 million Euros from a total budget of 13.4 million Euros (2).
“The project should also encourage the establishment of private research teams looking to benefit from quality, close at hand expertise, in order to develop new technologies focusing on green chemistry, and the chemistry and health of organic materials,” adds Thierry Lequeux. (1) The network reunites the three Norman universities (Caen, Rouen and Le Havre), the two engineering schools (INSA in Rouen and ENSICAEN), in partnership with the Research Federation INC3M, the CNRS and two universities located in South East England (Southampton and East Anglia). (2) The project will also be receiving support from the Upper Normandy and Lower Normandy Regional Councils.

Pr. Thierry Lequeux
Laboratory for Molecular and Thio-organic Chemistry (LCMT – CNRS, ENSICAEN, UCBN)
Tél. : 02 31 45 28 54 ou 28 74
Site : LCMT

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