“…Different alternatives have been designed to avoid these problems associated to the adoption of unactivated amides as acylating agents. Stoichiometric amounts of AlCl 3 , [13] N , N ‐carbonyldiimidazole, [14] boric acid, [12d] potassium tert‐butoxide, [15] borate esters, [16] and LiHMDS [12f] can promote the reaction, and in addition to biocatalytic transamidations in the presence of enzymes, [17] several procedures involving an in‐situ activation of the starting amide, [18] those based on ionic liquid catalysts [19] and even a catalyst‐free procedure [20] have been reported. Moreover, the use of catalytic amounts (5–50 mol%) of bisacetoxyiodobenzene, [21] povidone iodine, [22] hydroxylamine hydrochloride, [23] benzoic acid, [24] L‐proline,, [25] chitosan, [26] benzotriazole, [27] SiO 2 −H 2 SO 4 and strongly acidic mesoporous silica, [28] H‐β‐zeolite [29] and alumina, [30] inter alia , [31] have been also described in the field of transition metal‐free catalysis.…”