Effusion-cooling is the next logical step in gas turbine blade cooling. Research on this topic has been done since the early 1950s, but manufacturing and modelling difficulties have prevented its commercial application so far. Still, there is a multitude of scientific publications about most aspects of this technology. Here, an overview over the publications most relevant for engineering uses is provided, with a focus on its application to gas turbine blades. The topics addressed here include the basic geometric and aerodynamic parameters known from film-cooling, but also the thermal conductivity of the base material, simplified approaches for modelling effusion-cooling and finally the application to blades, which incorporates the combination of impingement- and effusion-cooling as well as influences from operation. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.