The 5^th Young Investigator Workshop of EuCheMS was held in Marseille, France. The meeting was a fantastic blend of science from all over Europe, as well as from farther afield. Selected early stage Investigators attended and presented a broad array of organic chemistry from new synthetic methodology and natural product synthesis, to the application of organic compounds to materials and medicine. While the quality of the talks was high throughout, selected European highlights for me included Syuzanna Harutyunyan’s (University of Groningen) development of 1,2-selective asymmetric copper catalysed addition chemistry, Mate Erdelyi’s (University of Gothenburg) fundamental study of 3 centre 4 electron bonding and Stellios Arseniyadis’ (CNRS, Paris) versatile palladium catalysed allylic alkylation of allyl dienol carbonates. There was good representation from chemical industry at the meeting too with talks on small molecule stem cell reprogramming (Laure Bouchez, Novartis), novel chemotype chemistry (Olivier Loiseleur, Syngenta) and process development work (Didier Schils, Jassen). Finally, invited international attendees from Israel, the USA and China reported a wonderful assortment of novel synthetic methodology, chemical biology and (photoresponsive) materials science.

I would like to thank the Organic Division of the RSC for financial support to attend this meeting.
 
Matthew Fuchter
Imperial College London