History

The founder and the first director of the Institute, Professor Mikuláš Gregor, defended the scientific concept of the Laboratory of the Inorganic Chemistry on 27th June 1953 at a meeting of the Section of Natural and Mathematic Sciences of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. This date is considered today the beginning of the Institute’s history. This scientific concept was based on the needs of national industry, therefore it was focused on various chemical treatments of the inorganic raw materials, mainly for the production of cements, refractories and active smectites. Besides these, the attention was also devoted to the research connected with aluminium production. The Laboratory became the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry in 1960, a self-standing entity of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. In that time, the Institute consisted of four departments: Department of Silicate Chemistry, Department of Hydrosilicates, Department of Molten Salts, and Department of Syntheses and Structural Chemistry. In slightly modified form these four departments are the inherent parts of the Institute till now.

During the 60 years of history, nine directors leaded the Institute. Each of them brought new ideas and pushed the Institute towards higher national and international reputation in science. Our highest appreciation belongs to them. The Institute has developed to the modern research institution with well-defined research aims and wide international collaboration and reputation. In the year 2002 a part of the Institute was appointed as the Integrated Center for Advanced Materials and Molecular Research of the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry of Slovak Academy of Sciences. This center is financially supported by the European Commission under the contract No. G5MA-CT-2002-04051.

Institute of Inorganic Chemistry is one of 70 institutions covering the research activities of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. The Institute is included in the Section II – The Life and Chemical Sciences. The Section of the Life and Chemical Sciences co-ordinates the activities of 22 scientific research institutes which may be subdivided into 3 scientific areas, namely: medical; biological and chemical; and agricultural and veterinary sciences.

The scientific activity of the Institute is currently focused to the research of the inorganic and bioinorganic systems suitable for design of new materials and/or technologies. This research is ultimately associated with the development of new theoretical and experimental methods.