The Department was founded in 1894 as a division of organic chemistry with its own financing. However, scientific research on organic chemistry started much earlier by prof. Einbort (1842) in the field of chemistry of xanthine. Teaching organic chemistry began with the lectures given by prof. A. Khodnev. He also worked out and issued the first textbook of organic chemistry. N. Beketov, F. Garnych-Garnitsky, G. Lagemark, A. Albitsky and others, lectured further organic chemistry. Prof. A. Kiprianov, N. Valyashko, Yu. Gabel, Ye. Khotinsky, B. Krasovitsky, L. Litvinenko, V. Lavrushin, S. Tsukerman, V. Orlov gained the worldwide recognition for the Department and created the world well-known Kharkiv Methodological and Scientific School of Organic Chemistry.

Today, the Department of Organic Chemistry ensures training for students of the School of Chemistry, the School of Biology and the School of Medicine in “Organic Chemistry”, “Bioorganic Chemistry” and “Chemistry of Hydrocarbon Energetic Materials” (including laboratory practice). The Department’s graduates are bachelors and masters in three specializations: “Organic Chemistry”, “Pharmaceutical Chemistry” and “Eco-geo-chemistry of Oil and Natural Gas”. There are several special courses: “Modern Organic Synthesis”, “Bioinorganic and Pharmaceutical Chemistry”, “Stereochemistry and Stereoselective Organic Synthesis”, “Chemistry of Natural Low Molecular Mass Compounds”, “Intramolecular Rearrangements and Pericyclic Reactions”, “Medical Chemistry” and “Chemistry of Hydrocarbon Energetic Materials”.

The Department maintains close scientific contacts with Ukrainian and foreign colleagues, for instance, with the Institute of Single Crystals of the NASU (Kharkiv), Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University, the Institute of Organic Chemistry of the NASU, the Medical Center of Kansas University (USA), the University of Geneva (Switzerland), the Catholic Leuven University (Belgium), the University of Cartagena (Columbia), etc.

The Scientific Council of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine coordinates the Department’s scientific research in the following areas:

• Organic synthesis: development of new methods of synthesis of photo- and biologically active compounds;
• Physical, chemical and spectroscopic studies of chemical and electronic structure of organic molecules;
• Organic luminophores with abnormally high fluorescence Stokes shifts.

The faculty members of the Department are the authors of a number of popular textbooks and monographs (“Medical Chemistry”, “Chemistry of Natural Low Molecular Mass Compounds”, “Chemistry of Hydrocarbon Energetic Materials”), as well as numerous publications in specialized peer-reviewed editions with high impact-factor.

The Department is the founder and the main organizer of the international scientific conference “Chemistry of Nitrogen-containing Heterocycles”, which is held once in three years, the last of which was in 2015.

For many years the Department was headed by Valerii Orlov (Doctor of Chemistry, Merited Worker of Science and Technology of Ukraine, Honorary Professor of V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University). From 2015 to this day, the Head of the Department is Doctor of Chemistry, Professor Andrii Doroshenko.

The staff of the Department includes 5 Doctors of Chemistry (4 of them are full professors), 8 PhDs in Chemistry (6 of them are associate professors), engineers, laboratory assistants and postgraduate students.