The new mesoporous material; TUD-1 is chosen of which the synthesis, characterization, and functionalization for (photo)-catalytic performance are extensively investigated in this study. The synthesis of the new catalytic materials M TUD-1 (M = Ti, V, Cr, Mo, Fe, Co and Cu) is carried out through an easy one-pot synthesis procedure, mainly depends on the addition of a small organic, cost-effective template triethanolamine together with the desired metal source and the silica source. The product; M-TUD-1 is a three-dimensional, open structured mesoporous siliceous material. The amount of metal added during the synthesis played the essential rule in the formation of different active site species (i.e. isolated, nano-particles and/or bulk crystals of metal oxide) in the TUD-1 matrix. The prepared materials are characterized by various characterization techniques (physical: X-ray diffraction, N2 sorption measurements SEM and HR-TEM and chemical: 29Si NMR, elemental analysis, and UV-VIS- and Raman spectroscopy). And their catalytic performance is tested in four different catalytic applications: selective photo-oxidation of propane, selective oxidation of cyclohexane, Friedel-Crafts benzylation of benzene, and laughing gas (N2O) decomposition. Indeed, the three-dimensional open structure of M-TUD-1 increases the accessibility to the active sites and hence, the (photo-)catalytic performance of M TUD-1 is ranked against their peers under comparable conditions: In the photo-oxidation of propane, Ti-TUD-1 exhibits a 2-2.5 times higher acetone selectivity than commercial TiO2. In the same reaction, Cr-TUD-1 is 5-6 times more active than SiO2 supported Cr at the same chromium loading. An important observation is that certain products (acetone, water) are less strongly adsorbed on TUD-1 than on zeolite-Y. In Friedel-Crafts benzylation of benzene, Fe-TUD-1 shows unique activity, which is benchmarked against other reported micro- (ZSM-5) and mesoporous systems (MCM-41 and HMS). In N2O decomposition, the activity reported over M-TUD-1 is less than reported for analogous M-ZSM-5. However, M-TUD-1 shows a better behaviour as a support than other mesoporous materials e.g. M-SBA-15, M-MCM-41. In conclusion, the present study shows that TUD-1 is not only just an interesting, but also an important support which can contain, in a controllable way, different active sites species, and that it can play a significant role in different catalytic application.