Some case histories are presented to illustrate aspects of industrial applied catalysis research. The examples include the investigation of potential new feedstocks for the production of commodity chemicals (para-xylene, phenol), the development of highly selective catalysts for ethylene oxide, and some problems of catalyst selection for reductive amination of carbonyl compounds. For new processes, the importance of realistic target setting and the interrelation of scientific and commercial factors in techno-commercial evaluation are considered. In new and existing processes, a step-change improvement to a catalyst system or an entirely new catalyst system may be desirable and Worth pursuing even if rather difficult. For specialty chemicals, it may not be easy to provide convincing scientific reasons why the ranking of catalyst performance can change for reactions that are otherwise quite similar. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.