Generic and Transferable Skills

In March 2001, Sir Gareth Roberts (President of Wolfson College, Oxford) was asked by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretaries of State at the Department of Trade and Industry and at the Department for Education and Skills to undertake a review into the supply of science and engineering skills in the UK. The review was commissioned as part of the Government's productivity and innovation strategy.

Sir Gareth Roberts' final report was published on 15 April 2002. The report sets out a series of recommendations to the Government, employers and others with an interest in fostering science, engineering and innovation in the UK. (Full details of Roberts Review)

The Roberts Review, SET for success - the supply of people with science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills, contained a number of recommendations aimed at improving the attractiveness of research careers.
The Government, in Investing in Innovation, its strategy for science, engineering and technology, accepted the recommendations of the Roberts Review, and provided funding in the Science Budget 2003-04 to 2005-06 to implement the recommendations for:

• increases in PhD stipends to a minimum of £12,000 by 2005-06(!).
• further increases in PhD stipends and postdoctoral researcher salaries in areas of recruitment or retention difficulty.
• Additional training for PhD students and postdoctoral researchers, mainly in transferable skills.
• A new Academic Fellowship scheme.

Thus from 2004/05 all 1st Year (2004/2005) Research Council funded research students are required to participate in the Graduate School Skills Development Programme and/or appropriate departmental courses to a degree equivalent to two weeks per session. All training courses and activities have been assigned a point value and two weeks per year is equivalent to 20 points per year.

Follow this link to see what courses are available to all post-graduate UCL students and what courses CoMPLEX MRes students have to take. The CoMPLEX courses are described below.

Skills Training accounts for 20% of the MRes mark. Courses suggested are for information only, unless otherwise described.

• Follow this link for information on how the Generic Skills component of the course fits in with the rest of the course.
• Click here for the handout given to students at the start of the year which forms the basis of the Generic Skills induction session.
• If Graduate School courses are fully booked students are advised to request that additional courses are organised.