Primarily Undergraduate‐Led Research in Physical Organic Chemistry: A Special Issue

Primarily undergraduate institutions (PUIs) and emerging research institutions (ERIs) serve a critical purpose for their student populations: quality education in close proximity to home. In the United States, we have witnessed a drastic rise in college-aged individuals—whether for familial or financial reasons—choosing to reside close to their roots for their college education. PUIs and ERIs often feature smaller student-to-faculty ratios and attempt to provide students with a more hands-on personalized college experience. For a student considering an undergraduate degree in STEM, a signature way to stand out among peers is to participate in undergraduate research. For decades PUIs and ERIs have sought to provide valuable research experiences, ultimately setting their students up for success in their academic training. Research experience as an undergraduate not only prepares one for graduate studies or entry-level industry roles but also can help a young scientist identify their passion. Physical organic chemistry is essentially a chemistry playground in this regard, where an undergraduate researcher can draw on their course-based knowledge in analytical, computational, inorganic, organic, and physical chemistry to discover new research directions. The concept for this special issue was discussed at the Physical Organic Chemistry Gordon Research Conference in 2025, where the volume of research from PUI and ERI faculty was on full display. The initial goal of this collection was to illustrate the wide-ranging nature of the discipline and highlight that physical organic chemistry is a fertile research area for faculty at such institutions. The articles in this special issue speak to this, with traditional research articles on structure–property (and structure–reactivity) relationships and blended experimental/computational approaches to physical organic questions, to integrating course work and research into the curriculum. In total, this special issue is meant to highlight not only the innovative research being undertaken at PUIs and ERIs but also the value of undergraduates working at the forefront of scientific discovery. Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.