3 Nobel Prize laureates
Alfred Nobel’s last wish was that an institution be set up that each year would reward people that had rendered a great service to humanity by improving or allowing considerable progress to be made in the field of knowledge and culture in 5 disciplines: peace, literature, chemistry, medicine and physics.
The Nobel prizes have been awarded every year since 1901.
Victor Grignard, Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1912
Director of the school from 1921 to 1935, Victor Grignard discovered a process that completely changed modern organic chemistry: the synthesis of mixed magnesium organic compounds. Today magnesium organic compounds have an even more important role as the building blocks in a great many fine organic chemical reactions in pharmacy, cosmetics and biotechnology.
Victor Grignard has inspired the school with his commitment to research and development.
Yves Chauvin, Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2005
Yves Chauvin [1930 – 2015] graduated CPE Lyon in 1954. Emeritus director of research at Chemistry, catalysis and polymerisation laboratory – LC2P2 (CNRS / CPE Lyon), former director of research at the Institut Français Du Pétrole, he was rewarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2005 for his work on the development of the metathesis method in organic synthesis.
He received the Nobel Prize jointly with Robert H. Grubbs (Caltech/USA) and Richard R. Schrock (MIT/USA), who were present at CPE Lyon for the scientific conferences in September 2006 that were part of the international symposium “Tomorrow…towards a selected chemistry”.
The process developed by the 3 researchers is used “day to day in the chemical industry, essentially in developing pharmaceutical products and sophisticated plastic materials.”
Jean Jouzel, joint winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2007
A “little bit” of a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for a CPE Lyon graduate, Jean Jouzel ! Jean Jouzel (CPE Lyon – ESCIL, 1968) is a climatologist and vice president of the intergovernmental panel of experts on climate change (IPCC), set up in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
He was co-laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, which was jointly attributed to Al Gore and the IPCC.
He is one of the most active and honoured French scientists working on climate change.
Jean Jouzel received the CNRS gold medal in 2002, the highest scientific distinction in France.
In 2012 he was rewarded the Vetlesen Prize for his works about polar ice caps and climate.
