Porous materials are currently of great scientific as well as technological interest. A strategy that is increasingly employed to prepare highly porous and well defined macroporous polymers is emulsion templating, whereby the droplets of a high internal phase emulsion are used to create pores in a solid material by curing or polymerization of the emulsion continuous phase. This Feature Article covers recent work in this area, focusing on: the preparation of such materials from new precursors and via novel approaches; the chemical modification of existing materials; and the application of the resulting porous structures in diverse areas of science and technology.