Hydrogenation of oxalates is one of the important organic reactions, which has an ultimate use for the industrial production of ethylene glycol. The studies on the ruthenium complexes-based homogeneous catalytic reaction systems are herein summarized. With the focus on the catalytic reaction systems, the important factors with significant influences on the oxalate transformation efficiency as well as the product selectivity are discussed, including temperature, H2 pressure, catalyst concentration, reaction ...