Together with his longtime collaborator Joseph Chatt, Shaw contributed to the development of organoplatinum chemistry.  They reported the first platinum hydride, PtHCl(PEt).  This colourless, volatile solid was the first non-organometallic hydride (i.e., lacking a metal-carbon bond).
With an interest in cyclometallation, he discovered one of the first pincer complexes via the orthometalation of 1,3-CH(CHPBu).