The success achieved in the 40-ies and 50-ies by the scientific school of Academician N. N. Semenov, Nobel Prize winner, has put forward chemical kinetics as the division of chemical physics to the frontier of chemical science. To understand the mechanisms of chemical reactions, to know the laws of reaction evolution with time means to govern a chemical process. This idea, originating from the classic works on chain reactions by Semenov?s school, has become the foundation for the development of chemical physics and retains its importance till now. That is why, as an answer to M. A. Lavrentiev?s initiative to create the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences in 1957, N. N. Semenov encouraged Professors V. V. Voevodsky and A. A. Kovalsky to organise the Institute of Chemical Kinetics and Combustion in Novosibirsk (the abbreviated title is ICK&C).

• Institute of Chemical Kinetics and Combustion, Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences