The International Solvay chairs enable the Solvay Institutes to invite in Brussels an eminent scientist for a period of one to two months in order to give lectures on her or his work to researchers in the corresponding field. The chair program starts with an inaugural lecture, the target of which is a broad audience.

The International Solvay Chair in Physics was created in 2006 with the enthusiastic and efficient support of Jacques Solvay who was then the President of the Solvay Institutes. After his death, the Board of Directors of the International Solvay Institutes decided to rename the chair after him.

Thanks to the support of the Solvay company, the program was extended to Chemistry in 2008. In 2024, after the split of the original Solvay company into two separate entities, the chemistry chair program was taken over by the Syensqo company, which now generously provides its funding. The chemistry chair was renamed "Syensqo chair in chemistry by the International Solvay Institutes", or "Syensqo chair in chemistry" for short