On rational cuspidal curves, open surfaces and local singularities

Let $C$ be an irreducible projective plane curve in the complex projective space ${\mathbb{P}}^2$. The classification of such curves, up to the action of the automorphism group $PGL(3,{\mathbb{C}})$ on ${\mathbb{P}}^2$, is a very difficult open problem with many interesting connections. The main goal is to determine, for a given $d$, whether there exists a projective plane curve of degree $d$ having a fixed number of singularities of given topological type. In this note we are mainly interested in the case when $C$ is a rational curve. The aim of this article is to present some of the old conjectures and related problems, and to complete them with some results and new conjectures from the recent work of the authors.