Nick Tomkinson studied Chemistry at The University of Sheffield and received his BSc in 1992 and his Ph.D. in 1995 under the supervision of Dr. D. Neville Jones and Professor Jim Anderson. Postdoctoral studies with Dr. Tim Willson at GlaxoSmithKline, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina (1996–1998) followed. Nick was appointed to the staff at Cardiff University in 1999 and was an EPSRC Advanced Research Fellowship (2004–2009). He moved to his current position at the University of Strathclyde in June 2011.

As a general theme to our research we have set out to develop synthetic methodology with three guiding principles:

• Reactions should proceed at room temperature
• Reactions should proceed in the presence of moisture and air
• Catalysts/reagents should be bench stable and prepared in three synthetic steps or fewer

Realisation of these goals should provide new bond-construction methods of broad utility which, most importantly, will be accessible to synthetic chemists’ worldwide without the need for highly specialised equipment or techniques.