There has been a significant and welcome emphasis on doctoral education in the last five years and there is wide agreement that ‘original research’ is the key definition of what doctoral education is about. However this term ‘original research’ requires further explanation and there is a need for clearer statements about what defines doctoral level work. This article reviews some of the recent European initiatives on the doctoral process and begins a discussion about what that might mean for supervisor development. It looks firstly at one way of framing good practice in a one to one supervisor relationship, and then identifies who might be involved in creating a supervisory team. It reviews the impact of the growth of graduate schools and the pressures to create collaborative cen-tres of excellence for research, and looks at the implications for supervisor development.