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An acrylonitrile based copolymer, poly(acrylonitrile-co-itaconic acid), P(AN-co-IA) was synthesized with different amounts of itaconic acid (IA) to study in situ porogen activity of IA to produce porous carbon nanofibers (CNFs) without any subsequent physical or chemical activation. The concept developed here avoids unnecessary and complex extra activation steps when fabricating CNFs which ultimately lead to lower char yields and uncontrollable pore sizes. The ability of COOH in P(AN-co-IA) to act as an in situ porogen by releasing CO 2 during carbonization was verified by simultaneous thermogravimetric analysis-mass spectrometry compared to polyacrylonitrile (PAN). The specific surface area of PAN CNFs (27 m 2 g -1 ) dramatically increases to 1427 m 2 g -1 upon addition of ∼8 wt% IA without any ex situ activation. Furthermore, we confirmed that the porosity could be tuned by changing the IA content. The best electrochemical performance was obtained from the copolymer containing ∼8 wt% of IA, which gives a maximum specific capacitance of ∼93 F g -1 at a scan rate of 10 mV s -1 and energy density of ∼46 Wh kg -1 at 1 A g -1 without any subsequent physical or chemical activation.