This paper explores the place of research training in higher education in the 21st century. It examines the changing position of research skills within higher education in recent years and looks for possible reasons for those changes. There are three main conclusions. First, training in research skills has been shifting down from doctoral programmes into Masters and increasingly into undergraduate programmes. Second, this development can be explained in terms of: a growing requirement for students to be able to plan and manage their own learning, changing trends in graduate employment; and the growth of a knowledge-based society. Third, research has become a transferable skill. The last of these conclusions has implications for the location of research within the higher education curriculum.