Michel Fouré is the founder of Berkeley Grant Writing LLC , a firm devoted to help companies and research organizations to write extremely effective research proposals. In this capacity, he offers a lifetime experience of both writing very successful grant proposals during his industry career as well as reviewing hundred of proposals during his tenure at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Prior to founding Berkeley Grant Writing LLC, Michel was Program Manager for the Batteries for Advanced Transportation Technologies (BATT) Program at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). Funded by the Department of Energy (Office of Vehicle Technologies), the BATT Program -- now renamed Advanced Battery Materials Research Program -- is the premier fundamental research program in the U.S. for developing high-performance, rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid-electric vehicles (HEVs) (see http://batt.lbl.gov/ for details). Michel also served as the Research Operations Deputy for the Energy Storage & Distributed Resources Division. In this capacity, Michel assisted the Division’s Head with tasks related to Department Strategy, Human Resources, Financial Management, Space and Facilities, Operations Safety, and Communications. He retired from LBNL in January 2016. During his tenure at Berkeley Lab, Michel reviewed well over 600 proposals (Department of Energy BATT, SBIR, ARPA-E, Sunshot, Small Business Vouchers, Lab-Corps as well as Cyclotron Road). He also served as a reviewer for the French ANR (Agence Nationale de la Recherche) and the DOE BES as well as for the Quadriennal Technology Review.
Prior to joining LBNL, Michel was Director of R&D for Arkema, Inc. (Arkema is a $10 billion chemical company spun off from oil and gas major Total in 2004). Over the years, his areas of responsibility involved Fuel Cells, Corporate Research, Hydrogen Peroxide & Hydrazine, Fluorochemicals, Fluoropolymers, Functional Polymers as well as Polymer Additives. He was the architect of three major proposals in the area of Fuel Cells that were subsequently funded by the DOE raising nearly $15M for Arkema and its partners. He was also the initiator of several projects related to batteries notably polyvinylidenefluoride binders for Lithium-ion batteries, fluoropolymers for Lithium-ion Polymer batteries as well as lithium hexafluorophosphate electrolyte salt process R&D. Prior to these assignments, between 1989 and 1993, he was President and Managing Director of Metablen Company B.V. (a then newly formed joint-venture between Arkema’s predecessor company and Mitsubishi Rayon). Based in Paris, France, the company grew from nearly zero to $20 million in sales (corresponding to 95% of the plant capacity) under his leadership. Since 2019, Michel has re-joined Arkema as a Sr. Technical Adviser.
Education. Michel is a Chemistry and Chemical Engineering graduate from French “grande école”: Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Caen. He holds a Doctorate in Chemistry (Dr. rer. nat.) from Würzburg University, Germany. He did post-doctoral work at Osaka City University, Japan. He also holds an MBA from Fairleigh Dickinson University, NJ.
Selected Awards and Honors
- Full scholarship from French Ministry of Education at University of Caen and Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Caen (France)
- Graduated first in class at Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Caen (France)
- Full scholarship from DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst / German Academic Exchange Service) at Würzburg University (Germany)
- Full scholarship from the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs at Osaka City University (Japan)
- Elf Aquitaine Innovation Trophy 1985
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Director’s Exceptional Achievement Award for Research Operations 2014 with the CalCharge team - Best Project Award with Sepion Team (as Industry mentor) U.C. Berkeley, I-Corps Program 2015