A survey of the most recent papers regarding the advanced control of polymerization reactors is carried out. Special attention is focused on optimal control theory, nonlinear control, adaptive control, and predictive control. A review is also performed in related areas, such as optimization and state estimation in polymerization systems. It is shown that there is a huge gap between industry and research practices. Actual implementation of advanced control theory in the polymerization area requires the improvement of measurement and state estimation techniques.