High throughput experimentation methods are well established in many companies and in research groups in academia. Recent advances were primarily achieved in the fields of innovative synthesis methods for bulk catalysts, using amongst other techniques split-and-pool methods, in miniaturization of reactors while increasing parallelization up to 625-fold on an approximately 7 cm x 7 cm footprint, and in development of novel software for "intelligent" design of libraries. Developments in these fields will be highlighted with a focus on applications in oxidation catalysis. (C) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.