Miguel Julve, creative chemist and scholar, a personal account

Abstract

In the frame of this special issue on the occasion of his 65th birthday, the present article is a personal account on the life and scientific contributions of Miguel Julve by a long-term coworker and friend. Miguel Julve is professor of Chemistry in the University of Valencia. I describe briefly his career, from the first training steps to the leadership of the coordination chemistry group in Valencia and to the blossoming of creative abounding works. I stress the importance of his scientific contribution to molecular magnetism, of his teaching and his careful training of young students and researchers coming from many places in Europe or South-America. I put such personal and collective adventure in the context of the Spanish democratic transition and of the best of European cooperation. I try to describe with a few anecdotes, the personal qualities of the man, who allowed him to create and to keep smoothly, during more than 40 years, with his accomplices J. Faus and F. Lloret, a friendly and studious climate in the laboratory, accompanied by a remarkable scientific production.