Jean-Pierre Launay, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, Universite Paul Sabatier, Toulouse and Institut Universitaire de France,Michel Verdaguer, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, Universite Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France

After studies at Ecole Normale Superieure (ENS) de Saint-Cloud, Jean-Pierre Launay was Assistant Professor at Universite Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris from 1967. His research was on the electrochemistry of polyoxoanions, and mixed valence systems. He was appointed Professor in 1983 and developed investigations on molecular electronics. In 1989, he moved to Toulouse, and led the "Centre for Materials Elaboration and Structural Studies", a CNRS laboratory, from 2003 to 2010. He has been a member of Institut Universitaire de France. He has also worked on molecular machines such as rotary motors and switching elements. He holds awards from the French Chemical Society and the French Academy of Sciences.

Following a career as a secondary school teacher and Assistant Professor at Ecole Normale Superieure (ENS) de Saint-Cloud, Michel Verdaguer became Professor at the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris in 1988. His research endeavours concentrate on molecular magnetism, in which field he has developed a rational approach to new systems, from quantum chemistry to applications (Haldane's gap, high spin molecules, room-temperature magnets, single molecule magnets). He developed synchrotron radiation studies in the field of molecular materials. He led the "Inorganic Chemistry and Molecular Materials Laboratory", associated to CNRS, from 1994 to 2001. He is presently engaged in the study of molecular multifunctional magnetic materials. He holds awards from the Spanish and French chemical societies and from the French Academy of Sciences.