Our work covers a diversity of challenges in coordination and organometallic chemistry. Particular foci include unsaturated ligands involving metal–carbon multiple bonding and the interface of transition and main group chemistries. In attempting to understand and ideally control the reactivity of such systems, the nature of the metal centre is of paramount importance; this may be tuned through variations in oxidation state, d-configuration and, most importantly, the nature of the co-ligands. Accordingly, considerable effort is directed towards the synthesis of new co-ligands which themselves do not necessarily take part in the transformations of other ligands but may moderate these indirectly.