Colloidal soft matter under external control

The physics of soft-matter systems controlled by external fields is reviewed and previewed. Particular emphasis is placed on statistical properties of well-characterized colloidal dispersions in different confining situations, in laser-optical, magnetic and electric fields as well as under shear. These are very active research areas where different complementary methods such as experiments, computer simulations and theory have been applied in parallel. Recently discovered novel phase transitions, generated and triggered by an external field, are described and the perspectives in this field for the next decade are discussed.