One of the outcomes of the policy emphasis upon skills formation in countries like Australia and the UK has been an increase in cross-disciplinary structured programs for higher research degrees raising implicit, but often unexamined, questions about the curriculum and expertise that should inform them. Key insights from applied linguistics and composition studies about disciplinary similarities and differences and writing pedagogy for the development of university-wide structured programs are discussed in the article. In addition, student evaluations of two "social sciences, humanities and business" writing programs that were developed to reflect these insights are reported. The findings are read to suggest that the framework within which research training is conceptualized must consider not only the diversity of domains and activities that characterise higher degree research, but the communicative purposes against which research texts are evaluated and differentiated. The overlapping and contrasting nature of these purposes suggests collaborations among specific discipline groups in structured program provision within the research degree cohort, rather than the local/general research training split that is often assumed.