Resumen del autor, extraído del trabajo. Both, environmental concerns and changes in the refinery diet strongly impact the area of catalysis. Increasingly stringent quality levels are required for the oil derived products. Unfortunately, the quality of the refinery diet is decreasing severely due to the augmented incorporation of heavy oils. In this work, several catalytic approaches to overcome these challenges will be discussed: (i) traditional concepts for new designs, like superacids, meso/macro-porous materials, and others, and (ii) new formulations and concepts i.e. ultra-activity, biocatalysts, electrocatalysts, high throughput experimentation, computational catalysis and selectivity improvements. Product markets are also changing. In short term an increase in fuel demand at the expense of heating oil could be expected. In long term (~2020+), a new threat for fuel consumption will appear in the scenario: fuel cell vehicles. The most convenient alternative would be to endeavour innovative routes to introduce an oil derived fuel, for both the onboard and offboard H2 production. At the very long term, new uses of oil have to point towards a direction far from CO2 production. These last targets should direct the basic research activities in catalysis.