[3] His PhD thesis on Electronic structures of some d1 and d2 oxo- and nitrido- d transition metal complexes was supervised by David Garner and Ian Hillier.
[6] He was also the former Chair of the Electron Spin Resonance Spectroscopy Group of the Royal Society of Chemistry[7] and is part of the Molecular Magnetism Group at University of Manchester along with Nicholas F. Chilton, Richard Winpenny, Eric McInnes, Grigore Timco and Floriana Tuna.
The research showed that the degree of charge transfer in addition to the H2 and CO2 gas adsorption properties of the polymer are able to be tuned as a function of the electronic state which has important implications for the potential applications of these polymers in optical, electrochromic and solar cell devices.
In 2015, Collison participated in a research which reported a dysprosium(III) bis(methanediide) single molecule magnet (SMM) with two large thermally activated energy barriers (Ueff) of 721 K and 813 K.[10] This was the largest Ueff ever reported for a monometallic dysprosium(III) complex.
The work was able to validate a design strategy towards realising high-temperature SMMs and also provide an insight to the unusual spin relaxation behaviour shown by the SMM.