The Laboratory of Polymer Materials Engineering (IMP : Ingénierie des Matériaux Polymères) is a joint research unit (UMR5223) belonging from the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), University Claude Bernard Lyon 1, St Etienne University Jean Monnet and the National Institute of Applied Sciences (INSA) in Lyon. Therefore IMP displays its activities on three locations :

http://www.insa-lyon.fr

http://www.univ-lyon1.fr

http://portail.univ-st-etienne.fr

IMP is also acting on two other sites :
INSA-Oyonnax : site dedicated to processing technologies
ENS-Lyon (Hotel à projets) for researches of the polymer related interfaces with biology

The IMP Laboratory is also a member of local institutes or European consortium : The Chemistry Institute of Lyon (ICL, http://www.iclyon.fr), CNRS laboratories in Lyon-St Etienne working in the field of chemistry. The Carnot Institute (I@L, http://www.instituts-carnot.eu/fr) covering the fields of materials, transport and energy. The European Center for Nanostructured Polymers (ECNP, http://www.ecnp-eu.org), consortium of European laboratories from European Network of Excellence NANOFUN-Polym.

The IMP Laboratory has a singular position at the national and international levels. By integrating various scientific skills related to polymer science (macromolecular chemistry, rheology, processing and reactive processing, physics ...) but also by all the research abilities required to address interfaces with other fields (catalysis, chemical engineering or biology). The IMP develops activities from basic research to applicative goals, from synthesis of new macromolecular architectures and formulation of polymers to the establishment of structureproperties relationships. To meet these scientific goals and societal-industrial achievements and with the specificity of the three sites of high education, the Laboratory is organized into four scientific areas of excellence. The following scheme gives the IMP working organization :

 Organigramme UMR5223

The laboratory is head by a committee of three persons : Prof. Ph. Cassagnau (Univ Lyon 1) Director and Profs C. Carrot (Univ St Etienne) and E. Fleury (INSA-Lyon) deputy directors.The scientific activities are coordinated by the scientific board, based on heads of the scientific areas of excellence. This committee is head by Prof. J.F. Gérard (INSA-Lyon) former director (2001-2011) of the Laboratory. Different support services (NMR, chromatography, processing) are experimental platforms of the laboratory.

Apart from the usual administrative management, the laboratory is supported by subsidiary (Joint stock company : LIP, INSAVALOR or internal public services : SAIC) of the institutions specialized in engineering and dedicated to set up and support partnership projects in research and innovative technologies. The laboratory activities are managed by 220 people dedicated to both research and teaching/training : 46 professors or lecturers, 12 Scientist seniors CNRS, 24 engineers, technicians and administratives, 100 Ph-D students, 12 post-doc and 25 trainees (masters).

Therefore IMP could be considered as French laboratory covering polymer science.