This article presents an original work contributing to the rational design of imprinted catalyst by molecular self-assembly toward predetermined high specificity. Assembling with p-nitrophenyl phosphate as the transition state analogue (TSA) of p-nitrophenyl acetate esterolysis and 1-vinylimidazole as the functional monomer, the imprinted catalyst was prepared. An increase in the amount of assembled monomer results in a higher activity of hydrolysis, which, however, does not lead to an improvement of specificity. The best specificity is shown a...