  In the present talk I shall review the construction of N=2 supergravity
models exhibiting stable de Sitter vacua. These solutions represent the first
instance of stable backgrounds with positive cosmological constant in the
framework of extended supergravities (N >=2). After briefly reviewing the role
of de Sitter space--times in inflationary cosmology, I shall describe the main
ingredients which were necessary for the construction of gauged N=2
supergravity models admitting stable solutions of this kind.
