Novel crystalline/amorphous core/shell Ni/NiO nanosheets have shown a high electrocatalytic activity in hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). In 1 M KOH, they display an HER current of 5 mA cm(-2) at an overpotential of 110 mV with a good stability. It is proposed that their excellent HER performance is achieved through the synergistic effect between the Ni core and the amorphous NiO shell, where the Ni core can reduce the resistance and the amorphous NiO shell can accelerate both Volmer and Heyrovsky processes to drive HER at low overpotentials. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.