Gerard Férey was a lecturer at the University of Maine.  In 1968, he founded the Department of Chemistry at the University Institutes of Technology of Le Mans. He argued his doctoral thesis at the Pierre-and-Marie-Curie University in 1977.
He was a teacher at the University of Maine from 1981 to 1996 and then at the Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines University since that date, where he founded the Lavoisier Institute. From 1988 to 1992 he was deputy director of the Department of Chemistry at the French National Centre for Scientific Research.
He was elected to the French Academy of Sciences 18 November 2003. In 2007, he was Vice-President of the Société Chimique de France. He was a member of the Institut Universitaire de France. He was also at the initiative of the Chemistry Ambition, a group that includes seven players in chemistry of France aimed at enhancing the image of the discipline to the public.