The area was formerly a ''polygone d'artillerie'' or artillery
range, with
ammunition depots, thus the name. Polygon hosts in 1956 the first
French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) outside Paris and created by Professor
Louis Néel. In 1962, it hosts a campus
CNRS. In 1967, the
Laboratoire d'électronique et de technologie de l'information was founded by CEA and became one of the world’s largest organizations for applied research in
microelectronics and
nanotechnology. Three international organizations are implanted between 1973 and 1988 with the
Institut Laue–Langevin, the
European Synchrotron Radiation Facility and one of the five branches of the
European Molecular Biology Laboratory. In 2006, the complex
Minatec specializing in
nanotechnology opens on the Polygon and in 2007, the
Institut Néel, specializing in
condensed matter physics, is founded.
National Laboratory for Intense Magnetic Fields has also numerous collaborations in terms of technical and technological innovations with these institutions. In 2008, the new innovation campus is called GIANT (Grenoble Innovation for Advanced New Technologies). In 2012,
Clinatec is founded on Polygone Scientifique by Professor
Alim-Louis Benabid. == Transportation ==