The “Laboratoire International Franco-Russe de Mathématiques et Interaction avec l'Informatique et la Physique Théorique” (LIFR MI2P) was created in 2002 by a Founding Agreement between the CNRS (the French National Center for Scientific Research) and the IUM (the Independent University of Moscow). This agreement has been signed on March 11, 2002, at the French Embassy in Moscow by the Director of the CNRS, Madame G. Berger and the President of the IUM, professor Yu. Ilyashenko in the presence of the Ambassador, Monsieur C. Blanchemaison and several eminent personalities of the French and Russian scientific world. Three institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), the Steklov Institute (MIAN), the Central Economics and Mathematics Institute (TsEMI) and the Institute for Information Transmission Problems (IPPI) were associated to this agreement. The director of the MI2P was Professor A. Sossinsky. The aim of the Laboratory MI2P was to bring together into a joint team several French and Russian researchers working on a wide spectrum of mathematical problems, ready to interact with the other sciences. At that time, the lab was rather small (8-10 collaborators), but the founders expected that it should have an influence far surpassing the direct scientific contribution of its permanent staff, being the meeting place for visitors coming from France (not only from Paris) and from Russia (not only from Moscow) for conferences, seminars, and colloquia, or for short-term research projects.
In 2006, the Laboratory MI2P was enlarged and reformatted jointly by CNRS and Russian co-founders into the Poncelet Laboratory (Laboratoire J.-V.Poncelet, UMI 2615, CNRS-IUM) with the new director, professor M. Tsfasman. The Poncelet Laboratory was a unique international scientific platform in Russia, on which intensive collaboration of European and Russian researchers, working in various areas of mathematics, theoretical physics and informatics, took place. During its 10 years of the existence, the Laboratoire Poncelet (LP) has become an important part of scientific life in majority in Moscow (Russia), playing the role of a cooperation platform and a “crystallization center” of French-Russian collaboration in mathematics, physics and informatics.
With the aim to enforce the French-Russian scientific communication, the partners propose to create a new structure, the French-Russian Interdisciplinary Scientific Center Poncelet (ISCP). The ISCP will conduct and coordinate French-Russian scientific investigations in the areas of theoretical and mathematical physics, mathematics and informatics.