Higher skills development

The continuing development of new skills and knowledge throughout life is valuable for individuals and essential for the economy. Governments across the world are realising with growing clarity that it is not sufficient to expand universities. Even highly skilled professionals need work structures which allow them to go on expanding their abilities. This Commentary from the Teaching and Learning Research Programme is based on a wide range of research projects which have examined the development of high-level skills. We believe that it provides a unique, evidence-based insight into good practice in professional development. This research has shown that there are right and wrong ways of developing professionals at all stages of a career. New graduates entering their first jobs, in occupations from nursing to electrical engineering, need support to turn into full professionals, much of it social and emotional as well as being concerned with the practical use of academic knowledge. Later in their careers, individuals need a wide range of development opportunities that allow them to broaden their careers as well as deepening their knowledge. In many cases, as our work on inter-professional working has shown, they need to find ways of stepping beyond their profession and working with members of other groups whose vocabulary, institutions and career paths ma