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Object of the present paper is to provide an up-to-date overview in the field of functional chiral polymers as catalysts in preparative organic chemistry. Attention has been in particular limited to "metal-free'' systems, that is, to polymeric systems capable of exerting their own specific the presence of active groups either directly bound to chiral residues or embedded in a chiral environment. This last can be generated by chiral groups located along or within the polymer backbone, sometimes well far apart from the catalytic sites.For convenience the material has been grouped into two major sections dealing with reactions carried out under homogeneous and heterogeneous conditions, respectively. The first section reports on the activity of different catalysts as tested in the hydrolysis of chiral (optically active or racemic) activated esters, whereas in the second section oxidative, reductive, and nucleophilic additions to prochiral activated carbon-carbon or carbon-oxygen double bond have been reported. catalytic role by virtue of