Shiyong Liu The three of us have to confess we felt a bit over-age when the editors of the Macromolecular Journals approached us for editing a young investigators issue for Macromolecular Rapid Communications . Although we would prefer not to think about it, this forced us to admit that we are slowly reaching the senior scientist category (i.e., the unspoken but unavoidable 40 years old threshold). However, the idea of such a special issue sounded very exciting to us. Even though we – and other peers in our age category – could not contribute as authors in such an issue, several names came immediately to mind. Indeed, we have met over the last years many young talents, which represent a promising new generation. Many of these researchers were graduate or undergraduate students at the time we were post-docs or just starting our independent research careers. A few years have passed and these individuals have now become active contributors and rising stars in the fi eld of