Imre Kiricsi was born in 1948 in Téglás, Hungary. He made his primary and secondary school Szombathely, in the Lajos Nagy Gimnasium.  He was admitted at the Science University Attila József, the Department of Natural Sciences, Chemistry in 1966.

He got his diploma in chemistry in 1972, and he immediately started his scientific and pedagogic carrier at Szeged University Attila József, as assistant professor. He got his PhD thesis in 1975 with the grade summa cum laude on elaboration of the technics of measuring the method radio-gas chromatography.

As a collaborator of Professor Pál Fejes, he started to enter the exciting field of zeolites examining the possibilites of modifying the acidic centers. As a result of this collaboration, they succeded in eliminating the acidic centers of zeolites, that led finally to one of the best method of preparation of basic zeolites. In order to eliminate the aluminium from the zeolite, they proposed a completely new method, a gas- solid reaction, where the dealuminating agent was either a chlorine containing organic compound or a volatile metal chloride. He was defending his „Candidature thesis” in 1982 based on these results.

He was working as a consultant at Eniricerche SpA in Milan during two years starting in 1992. He was studying the synthesis and characterization of acidic zeolite-based catalysts that were used in petrochemical industry. In addition to the study of crystalline materials possessing pores of molecular dimensions (such as zeolites), he also started to study the synthesis of other porous or layered materials, their modification and applications to catalysis.

Starting from October 2000 he spent a year at the University of California, Berkeley, in the laboratory of Professor Gábor Somorjai. They planned together a completely new method of synthesis for the preparation of highly selective metal catalysts. The essential feature of this invention is the building of nanometer sized metal particles directly into the pores of mesoporous silicates.

As a conclusion of his scintific research carrier: he has written some 15 books or chapters in books, 300 scientific papers referenced by SCI, several hundreds of conferences, of posters in international and Hungarian congresses, 18 patents, more than 2700 independent citations and the Hirsch-index n° 29.

He initiated the foundation of Hungarian Zeolite Association (HZA) in 1992, he was elected first secretary (1992-98), and then he became its president. The HZA has organized several international meetings, the material of which was published by Elsevier with Imre Kiricsi as coeditor.
Imre Kiricsi was nominated university professor in 1993 and in 1996 he was elected as the director of the Applied Chemistry Department of Szeged University Attila József.