A novel ring-closure method was developed to specifically focus on the preparation of water soluble cyclic polymers. The well-defined linear polymers were synthesized by a standard RAFT polymerization using a functional RAFT agent 1. The cyclic polymers were then obtained by virtue of an efficient bromomaleimide-thiol substitution reaction to ring-close the linear precursors. This technique is unique in that it not only produces various well-defined water soluble cyclic polymers with high efficiency and topology purity, but also employs the environmentally benign solvent, water, as the ring-closure reaction media. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.