A fixture in the Nancy landscape for more than six decades, the Laboratory of Macromolecular Physical Chemistry (known as LCPM) has seen generations of researchers, faculty members, research support staff, doctoral candidates, and students come and go. This historic laboratory in the city of Nancy, jointly administered by the University of Lorraine and the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), recently closed its doors after fifty-seven years (sixty-three, purists might say) of loyal service.
In 1962, Professor Jean Néel joined the École Nationale Supérieure des Industries Chimiques (ENSIC) in Nancy as the successor to Professor Henri Wahl, who at the time held the chair of Industrial Organic Chemistry at the Faculty of Sciences in Nancy. This chair had been established on February 16, 1949,1 to replace the Laboratory of Applied Chemistry for Organic Dyeing and Printing at the Faculty of Sciences in Nancy. A few years later, in 1968, a turning point occurred: the Unit formalized its collaboration with the CNRS and became an “associated research team” (ERA 23).