About Skillsforge
Designed for the global research environment, SkillsForge is the leading provider of postgraduate researcher (PGR)/Higher Degree by Research (HDR) management and researcher development solutions for universities worldwide.
Our SaaS platform streamlines the entire PGR lifecycle—from Admissions to Award—while supporting skills frameworks such as the Vitae RDF, e-CF, and specific institutional frameworks.
With over 15 years of domain expertise, we work closely with institutions to deliver efficient, user-friendly systems configured to their needs.
SkillsForge also offers robust training management systems, research supervisor compliance and development tracking, and real-time reporting.
We help institutions improve PGR compliance, enhance the researcher experience, reduce PGR administration burden and unlock strategic insights through automation, configurability, and excellent support.
What we do
Working exclusively within the global research sector, the SkillsForge team possesses deep domain expertise in the area of Postgraduate Research Management and Researcher processes. Our SaaS solution supports students, supervisors, administrators and managers throughout the complete life cycle of the PGR, researcher and research supervisor.
Our first SaaS installations were in the UK at the University of York and King’s College London in 2010. These customers continue to remain with us, underlining the successful relationship and solution we have with all of our university customers.
SkillsForge facilitates the achievement of PGR/HDR, Researcher and Research Supervisor management and support objectives, with an understanding that although institutions do things differently, they are invariably striving to achieve the same or similar outcomes.
Standard out of the box workflows, features and functionality have been built to solve common problems yet the solution has been kept flexible enough to cater for customer requirements, providing a framework to adapt to institutional models.
Our value adding solution embraces the complete cycle for PGRs/HDRs through to Early and Mid Career Researchers (EMCRs) through to Research Supervisors, as depicted in the diagram below.
SkillsForge aligns with Higher Education’s Cloud First and Digital Transformation strategies.
Our solution sits alongside and integrates with the institutional ecosystem, e.g. student record systems, ERM/CRM systems, HR systems, Research Systems. Its user interface can be configured to match a university customer’s branding, look and feel, and is accessible through any modern browser, with its responsive design providing the same user experience across desktop, tablet and mobile phone.
Awards and Achivements
We have a proven track record of delivery and have shown significant impact in terms of efficiency and time saving, for which we are proud to have been awarded ‘Best Effect on Business Goals’ at the 2019 UXUK Awards.
We were also delighted to be winners of both the Innovation Award and the University Entrepreneurs Challenge Award at the Educate North & UK Leadership Awards in 2017, and the Tech Northern Stars North East Region winner 2018. Further, we were honoured to be awarded UK Export Champion status in 2021 and 2022.
Our Information Security Management System (ISMS) is certified to ISO27001 and we provide an ISO27001 certified fully comprehensive delivery capability for onboarding and supporting our customers.
From project inception through to successful implementation and support, we work in a collaborative and consultative manner, in order to fully understand customer requirements and opportunities for benefit generation.
Our Approach
SkillsForge provides an ISO27001 certified fully comprehensive delivery capability for onboarding and supporting our customers.
From project inception through to successful implementation and support, we work in a collaborative and consultative manner, in order to fully understand customer requirements and opportunities for benefit generation.
Onboarding Delivery Services
- Business Analysis, process advice and consultancy
- Project management
- Configuration
- Solution Development (if applicable)
- Data and systems integration
- Data Migration
- Infrastructure Setup
- Testing
- Training
- Implementation
Support Services
- Account Management
- Technical Support Desk
- System maintenance
- System monitoring
- Backups
- Solution Development/Regular Upgrades
- Solution Hosting at Amazon Web Services world class data centres
- Training
Our values
Compassion
The heart of what we do at SkillsForge is using our knowledge of Higher Education to strive to improve postgraduate research management, making sure that students, staff and institutions have the tools they need to achieve their full potential.
Support
Our products were designed to make sure students can get the right support during their studies, and to facilitate supervisors and administrators in providing that support, by allowing for features such as automated follow-up and chasing, a dashboard showing a summary of students’ progress and digitally signed supervision meetings.
We understand that each institution is different and has its own structures in place, which is why we offer configurable products that fully integrate with existing student records and other systems. When you invest in SkillsForge, you receive both our products and the support of our excellent team who will be on hand to guide you through the implementation process and beyond.
Ambition
Being one of the most established companies in our specialised area, we have a tried and tested knowledge of what does and doesn’t work for institutions. In other words: we’ve done the research, so you don’t have to. With our solid foundations and a service we believe in, we have the ambition to expand our solution even further to institutions all across the globe, keeping the user as the focus of everything we do.
We have high expectations and ambition for ourselves and we want that to be reflected in our service and products.