IUPAC International Conference on Ionic Polymerization IP'01, Crete, October 2001

The IUPAC International Symposium on Ionic Polymerization (IP'01), fourth in series after Istanbul (1995), Paris (1997) and Kyoto (1999), was held in Crete, Greece, in October 2001. The major topics of the symposium included anionic and cationic polymerization, both vinyl and ring-opening, as well as living radical, metathesis, metal-coordination, template and enzymatic polymerization. One day of the Symposium was devoted to polymer physical chemistry and physics. Most of the invited contributions are compiled in this issue of Macromolecular Symposia which provides an excellent overview of current research in this area.