It was a great pleasure for us to accept the invitation of Pierre Braunstein, Editor-in-Chief of the Comptes Rendus Chimie , to guest-edit this thematic issue. We chose to devote it to an exciting field of research, which concerns the production and the oxidation of hydrogen by bio-inspired catalysts. Indeed, the development of economic and ecological processes of hydrogen production/uptake is a major goal in the perspective of a hydrogen economy. This thematic issue, entitled Bio-inspired hydrogen production/uptake catalysis , is dedicated to the chemists' efforts, in this multidisciplinary field at the interface of chemistry and biology, to conceive and to study new molecules inspired by the active sites of the [NiFe] and [FeFe] hydrogenases. The ultimate purpose of these theoretical and experimental studies is to achieve efficient electrocatalysts for the production or the oxidation of hydrogen through a better understanding of the mechanisms implied at the molecular level. We thank Pierre Braunstein very warmly for his invitation, as well as all the colleagues whose contributions allowed the edition of this thematic issue, which, we hope, will contribute to illustrate different aspects of the research performed by chemists in this challenging field.