The Semenov Institute of Chemical Physics of Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) (now is known as the Semenov ICP in Moscow; Russian: Институт химической физики им. Н. Н. Семёнова, Москва, учреждение Российской академии наук) was established in 1931 under direction of Prof. N. N. Semenov (see alternative transliteration from Russian Cyrillic: Nikolay Semyonov) on the basis of the Physico-Chemical Sector of the Leningrad Physical Technical Institute (Ioffe Institute). The Institute has been headed by N. N. Semenov (see alternative spelling Nikolay Semyonov), Nobel Laureate in Chemistry (1956). The Institute is situated in Moscow since 1943. The aim for the Institute has been defined as “the implementation of physical theories and methods into chemistry, chemical industry and some other branches of national economy”.
The main areas of scientific activities of the Institute are kinetics and mechanism of chemical reactions, catalysis of chemical reactions, theory and dynamics of elementary processes, physics and chemistry of solids, structure and properties of polymers and composites, fundamentals of the polymerization processes, physics and chemistry of combustion, shock waves and detonation. The staff of the Institute includes about 450 researchers.
The Institute is the basis of the Moscow State University, a chair of Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and other high schools. In 1956, a branch of the Institute of Chemical Physics was established in Chernogolovka which was later reorganized as an independent Institute of Problems of Chemical Physics (IPCP RAS) in Chernogolovka (since 1997). One more department of the Semenov Institute was reorganized in 1994 as the N. M. Emanuel’ Institute of Biochemical Physics in Moscow of Russian Academy of Sciences.