The introduction of the Research Quality Framework will place increasing pressure on researchers to build a strong and credible research profile. This will necessitate the ongoing development of researcher capabilities to increase research productivity and quality. Universities are responding to the financial implications of the RQF by raising their expectations of academics with respect to their research. Unfortunately, most Australian universities are not providing suitable development opportunities to guide researchers into new and improved ways of meeting those requirements. This paper reports the results of several evaluations of researcher development needs. It identifies and describes four stages of researcher careers: the postgraduate internship, early career researching, mid-career research and research leadership. The data indicates that there are different development needs which should be met at each of these phases. The paper suggests that there is already considerable knowledge about how best to build the requisite capabilities if other successful university staff development programmes are considered.

Keywords: researcher development; research capabilities; academic development