New chiral oxazoline-based ruthenium(II) complexes have been synthetized and fully characterised. The corresponding grafted catalysts were prepared by anchoring the complexes onto SiO2 or Pd/SiO2 supports. C-13 CP-MAS NMR and XPS spectroscopies showed that the organometallic complexes remained unchanged when they were deposited on the support. High activity and enantioselectivity in the reduction of acetophenone were achieved with some homogeneous complexes. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.