The reduction behaviour of nine gold-vanadia/ceria and vanadia/ceria catalyst samples prepared by different methods has been studied using the temperature programmed reduction method. Fitting each computed TPR pattern to the experimental one, the kinetic parameters and the hydrogen consumption corresponding to all individual reduction processes were determined. It was shown that the gold content of every sample is reflected both by the values of parameters of the Sestak-Berggren function and by the dependence of the activation energy of reduction on the degree of reduction. The reduction behaviour of every sample has been studied taking into account the composition of each sample as well as the values of the kinetic parameters together with those of the Sestak-Berggren exponents and the dependence of the activation energy on the degree of reduction. It is shown that upon comparing the TPR results it is possible to select the most active catalytic systems in the complete oxidation of hydrocarbons. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.