Abstract: The present invention relates to composite polymer particles and thereof derived porous carbon particles with tailored inter- and intraparticle properties. Furthermore, the present invention describes a hard-templating method involving polymerization and self-assembly of a monomer/oligomer/polymer around inorganic template particles for independently controlling the composite polymer particle size for a given template particle size and thereby the pore size and particle size of porous carbon nanoparticles. As a result, particle sizes of porous carbon particles can be generated independently of pore sizes via hard-templating processes.