West's research has covered the synthesis of new oxide materials, crystal structure determination and structure-property relations with particular focus on ionic, electronic and mixed ionic-electronic conduction.  This includes lithium ion conductors, oxygen ion conductor and superconductors.
His research on these new materials has covered a broad range of conducting materials, including - solid solutions with high lithium ion conductivity at room temperature, the  oxide ion conductor and much research on barium titanate, such as that on the La-doped  high permittivity dielectric. He discovered the first 5-volt cathode material for lithium battery applications, .
One of his specialties has been development of the electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (see dielectric spectroscopy) technique for materials characterisation and electrical property measurements.  
He developed the impedance and modulus spectroscopy technique of data analysis with his colleague at Aberdeen, Malcolm Ingram and the Almond-West method for ac conductivity data analysis.