TRANSFERABLE SKILLS, MARKETABILITY AND LIFELONG LEARNING - THE PARTICULAR CASE OF POSTGRADUATE RESEARCH STUDENTS

Although there is now a plethora of development programmes and researc h studies on what are generally called 'transferable skills', they are almost entirely at undergraduate level. Pockets of training to help p ostgraduate research students to develop the 'key' transferable skills do exist, but there is little, if any, provision to help the students to recognise, identify and build on the 'transferable' aspects of the skills which they are developing as a natural consequence of undertak ing a research degree, or to make a sound case for the existence of th ese skills in job interviews. On the basis of a study in five departme nts at University College London, this article identifies and presents (i) principles by which institutions can set up such provision, and ( ii) a framework for a high-level transferable skill-set which should ( a) distinguish a holder of a PhD and possibly and possibly an MPhil fr om holders of first degrees and shorter research degrees and (b) provi de triggers to help individual MPhil/PhD students to identify the rich ness of their own skill-sets.