Abstract
We investigate some of the ways in which higher education institutions can, and do, provide effective research and skills development for postgraduate and other novice researchers, students and staff, and also new supervisors. This workshop offers an overview of the skills and competencies that are recognised, in the context of challenges to the skills agenda in higher education. It discusses the notion for an appropriate balance between formal and informal means of developing transferable skills and the need to embed skills development into developmental programmes of all sorts. Participants will consider the relevance of learning needs analysis and personal development profiling for researchers and the place of assessment in development provision, informed by a CETL funded project investigating this theme. Participants should be happy to contribute in such a way which, after anonymisation, informs the ongoing project.