Costantino Creton is a CNRS research director within the Soft Matter Science and Engineering Laboratory of the ESPCI ParisTech. He joined forces with Dominique Hourdet, Yvette Tran, Tetsuharu Narita and Matteo Ciccotti to form the "Soft Polymer Networks Group" which focuses on the mechanical properties, dynamics and structure/properties relationship of soft polymer based materials, such as soft adhesives, rubbers or hydrogels. We have developed several original experimental setups combining accurate mechanical measurements and optical observations.