Stuart Burnett, Scott Miller, Fáinché Murphy, Catherine Weetman
-Heterocyclic carbenes are commonplace in modern-day homogeneous catalysis due to their easily tunable steric and electronic features. Within the main group elements, NHCs have enabled the isolation of a range of complexes in unusual coordination environments and/or low oxidation states. With significant research efforts developing the transition-metal-like behavior of main group elements, emerging trends are now starting to showcase the potential of NHCs in enabling catalytic application of main group elements. This perspective highlights the potential of NHCs to transform main group catalysis, including a focus on relatively underexplored tethered and bis-NHC complexes for early main group elements.