HIGHLIGHT Mechanism and Kinetics of Dithiobenzoate-Mediated RAFT Polymerization. I. The Current Situation CHRISTOPHER BARNER-KOWOLLIK, 1 MICHAEL BUBACK, 2 BERNADETTE CHARLEUX, 3 MICHELLE L. COOTE, 4 MARCO DRACHE, 5 TAKESHI FUKUDA, 6 ATSUSHI GOTO, 6 BERT KLUMPERMAN, 7 ANDREW B. LOWE, 8 JAMES B. MCLEARY, 9 GRAEME MOAD, 10 MICHAEL J. MONTEIRO, 11 RONALD D. SANDERSON, 9 MATTHEW P. TONGE, 9,12 PHILIPP VANA 2 1 Centre for Advanced Macromolecular Design, School of Chemical Engineering and Industrial Chemistry, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales 2052, Australia 2 Institut fu ¨ r Physikalische Chemie, Georg-August-Universita ¨t Go ¨ ttingen, Tammannstraße 6, 37077 Go ¨ ttingen, Germany 3 Laboratoire de Chimie des Polyme `res, UMR CNRS-UPMC 7610, Universite ´ Pierre et Marie Curie, T44, E1, 4, Place Jussieu, 75252 Paris Cedex 05, France 4 Research School of Chemistry, Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia 5 Institut fu ¨ r Technische Chemie, Technische Universita ¨t Clausthal, Erzstraße 18, 38678 Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany 6 Institute for Chemical Research, Kyoto University, Uji, Kyoto 611-0011, Japan 7 Laboratory of Polymer Chemistry, Eindhoven University of Technology, P. O. Box 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands 8 Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, Mississippi 39406-5043 9 UNESCO Centre for Macromolecules and Materials, Department of Chemistry and Polymer Science, University of Stellenbosch, Private Bag X1, Matieland 7602, South Africa Correspondence to: P. Vana (E-mail: pvana@uni- goettingen.de) Journal of Polymer Science: Part A: Polymer Chemistry, Vol. 44, 5809–5831 (2006) V V C 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 5809