Preface Free

We are delighted to introduce this 48^th volume of the Specialist Periodical Report in NMR. As discussed in the preface to Volume 47, the original concept of the SPR in NMR as an “index” into the NMR literature has been reworked to reflect the current balance of NMR research. As always, the different chapters outline annual developments over a broad range of publications, complementing traditional review articles focussing on individual topics. Authors have employed their expert knowledge to yield effective summaries over a wide range of areas, highlighting original and important publications rather than attempting exhaustive coverage of well-established areas. In this year's volume, it is our pleasure to welcome a new chapter focusing on the development of solution NMR of small molecules, filling what we felt was a gap in coverage. We hope these new volumes will be especially helpful for instrument managers and early career researchers, in both academia and industry, who are wishing to engage with the wider literature.

In the first chapter, Teobald Kupka continues his survey of developments in the theory and computation of NMR chemical shifts, a topic of pivotal importance across the chemical sciences. In a similar spirit, Jarosław Jaźwiński scrutinizes publications involving the calculation and application of indirect spin-spin (J) couplings. The extensive applications of NMR spin relaxation measurements are beautifully summarized by Jozef Kowalewski. William Reynolds and Darcy Burns have provided an outstanding chapter on solution NMR of small molecules, covering literature from 2020 and 2021. Abil Aliev continues his impressive survey of the ever-growing range of applications of solid-state NMR. Ryan Mewis and Alexander Wilcock continue the recently added chapter on hyperpolarisation techniques, which continues to be a rapidly developing area of NMR. Matthew Wallace provides his overview of soft matter NMR, while Andrew Atkinson resumes his excellent overview of developments in the wide field of protein and nucleic acid NMR. Closing the volume, Malcolm Prior continues his refined compendium of publications in NMR of living systems in chapter 9.

Finally, we thank the Books team at the Royal Society of Chemistry, principally Janet Freshwater and Liv Towers, for their assistance and support. As always, we are thankful for the work of each contributor who has read, collated and summarised vast expanses of the literature in circumstances in which, as life appears to head towards a new normal, we have all been as busy as ever.

Josep Sauri and Paul Hodgkinson

Barcelona (JS) and Durham (PH)