Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

French national research organisation with its head office in Paris, founded in 1939 and the largest basic research body in Europe, employing tens of thousands of researchers and engineers. Runs more than a thousand joint research units with French universities across chemistry, biology, physics, engineering and the humanities, including institutes for medicinal and organic chemistry, natural products and molecular biology, funds and evaluates research, and licenses inventions through its subsidiary for technology transfer.