Francisco Lloret - Biography#

Prof. Lloret performed his scientific and teaching career at the University of Valencia (lecturer, assistant-professor, professor), with the exception of the first five years. He started by a post doc stay in one of the most creative French molecular chemistry group directed by O. Kahn, young professor, founding father of molecular magnetism. Coming back to Valencia he found his own way in chemistry by developing a rational synthetic approach to design and to create molecular materials, tightly linked to the study and interpretative work to understand the new chemical species and their physical properties (supported by 20 national projects from 1981 to 2014 and accompanied by the personal supervision of 12 PhD theses). The impact of his work was still enhanced since his integration in the Valencian Institute for Molecular Sciences (ICMol).

The European commitment of Prof. Lloret manifested itself at the beginning by the tight collaboration with french groups (with 6 Spanish-French Integrated Actions: 1989 – 1997). It was then rapidly extended to Europan networks of the successive PCRD programmes [4 TMR Networks: 1992-1994, 1998 – 2007 including a network of excellence (MAGMANET): 2005 – 2010]] and 2 INTAS Projects, EU and Eastern Countries (1996 – 1999, 2001 – 2004).

Professor Lloret and his team, within the department of inorganic chemistry of the university and then within the ICMol are among the ones who contributed to create an effective European Research Area in the field of Molecular Magnetism, presently taking the shape, beyond bilateral and multilateral cooperations, of an European Institute of Molecular Magnetism (EIMM).

The scientific endeavours of Prof. Lloret preceded (and followed) his national and European investments. It is striking to observe how a career begun by routine potentiometric measurements of metallic complexes formation constants developed into his present edge-cutting studies of molecular multifunctional magnetic materials thanks to a systematic and creative approach of more and more elaborated oxamide and oxamate systems, homo or heterometallic, from zero to three dimensional networks, from molecular to supramolecular structures, from simple isotropic exchange interactions to anisotropic and antisymmetric tricky behaviours, with a constantly improved mastering of complexity.