The Laboratory for Catalysis has been created in 1960 by François Gault who was a professor at the University of Caen until 1971, when he left for Strasbourg.
The laboratory was initially led by Daniel Cornet. The team of Daniel Cornet then joins with the neighboring team of spectrochemistry led by Jean-Claude Lavalley to form in 1979 a new merged laboratory (ERA 824) entitled “Structure and reactivity of adsorbed species”.The Spectrochemistry Laboratory was initially founded by René Romanet.
The new laboratory was then directed by Daniel Cornet until 1987, then by Jean-Claude Lavalley (1987-1997), Jean-Pierre Gilson (1998 -2002, 2008- 2011), Frédéric Thibault-Starzyk, Christian Fernandez (2003-2007, Sept. 2016 -…)