In our September 2013 issue, we published a Commentary that highlighted a degree of stagnation in the field of organic spintronics1. This stagnation was attributed primarily to the proliferation of models that were conceived to explain specific sets of data but are not valid in general. We, and the authors, felt that the publication of the article could provide an opportunity for researchers in the field to reflect on the situation, and we solicited replies2.

We would like to thank all of our readers who provided feedback, and, in this issue, we are publishing six of the comments we received (page 884). The Correspondences we have selected were chosen because we felt they provided a notable contribution to the discussion. One of the comments is a technical reply from the authors of a paper that was mentioned extensively in the Commentary. All those who wrote to us broadly agree with the apparent stagnation of the field, although the general feeling seems to be that testing the models through spectroscopy — the main proposal in the Commentary — would not, alone, solve the problem. Combining spectroscopy and transport experiments, standardizing data and designing models starting from the molecular level are among the additional methods proposed. Finally, the simple use of logical reasoning is highlighted as a powerful tool when spectroscopy alone could lead to the wrong conclusions.

These Correspondences do not, of course, settle the debate. However, from the responses we have received, it seems that the community has found the exercise useful. It is likely that other fields would benefit from such a process — stepping back and reflecting on where to go next — and we shall certainly consider repeating the process for other areas in the future.