Over the past 50 years, from the initial conception of crown ethers, supramolecular chemistry has developed into an interdisciplinary research field that spans across biology, chemistry and physics. Naturally, Nature Communications is a well suited platform for such exciting work due to its broad scope.

Therefore, the editors have collated a selection of the most recently published experimental and theoretical studies in supramolecular chemistry in Nature Communications. This collection of papers highlights the importance of the field and showcases advances ranging from physical principles, discrete assemblies, materials design to complex systems. All the papers are free to access and we hope you enjoy reading them.