Our recent theoretical and experimental characterisations of novel Pd N-heterocyclic carbene catalysts showed a clear relation between low-energy normal mode energies and catalytic performance. Here we propose to generalise these findings through continued characterisation of a new class of Ni and Pd catalysts, differing only in the identity of the central metal or substituents, yet displaying large differences in catalytic performance. The experimental results will be compared with DFT calculations undertaken on these systems. Low-energy normal modes will be characterised for both the solid catalyst and an amorphous solvent-catalyst matrix, for two differing ligand classes. The experiment will corroborate that the detailed characterisation of low-energy normal modes is requisite to quantitative characterisation of the differences in activity for homogeneous catalyst systems.