Two separate co-author papers have just been published in ACS Macro Letters, one led by Rahul Sujanani, and the other by James Bamford. Rahul’s study investigates the influence of polymers under moderate hydration conditions, far from the well-studied extremes of rigorously dry, and highly swollen. In this we show the changes in conductivity and ion transport as a function of hydration, controlled by a bespoke setup, designed by Phong Ngyuen. This work demonstrates a crossover point in the relationship between hydration and conductivity that is defined by the hydration number of lithium ions. In James’ study, we show that lithium ion transport in a polymer with a pendant imidazole group can be improved by quaternization of the imidazole to imidazolium. This improvement is maintained even after Tg normalisation, and is further punctuated by an inverse-Haven ratio greater than 1.