Managing your skills and expertise

Skills describe the expertise, methods, and techniques you use in your research and help identify specialists in specific fields. We use them to recommend content relevant to your work, so it’s important to keep your skills up to date. You can also endorse researchers in your network to recommend them for their skills and expertise.  

You can add skills to your profile in a few simple steps:

1. Go to your profile’s Info tab
2. Click the pencil icon to the right of Skills and expertise
3. Type the skill you want to add or pick from our suggestions
4. Click Save to add your skills to your profile.

You can add up to thirty skills to your profile. 

Removing skills from your profile is quick and easy:

1. Go to your profile’s Info tab
2. Click the pencil icon to the right of Skills and expertise
3. Click the x next to the skills you want to remove
4. Click Save to confirm your changes. 

Skills and endorsements are great ways to help identify specialists in specific areas of science and research. Endorse your connections to recommend them for the skills and expertise listed in their profile:

1. Go to the profile of the researcher you want to endorse
2. Click on their Info tab
3. You’ll see a list of their Skills and expertise on the left-hand side
4. Click on the + sign to endorse them for a given skill.

Note: To endorse another researcher, you have to be following each other first. 

You can remove an endorsement in a few simple steps:

1. Go to the profile of the researcher you want to endorse
2. Click on their Info tab
3. You’ll see a list of their Skills and expertise on the left-hand side
4. Hover your cursor over the green plus icon that represents your endorsement. This will change to a minus
5. Click to remove your endorsement. 

To skip an endorsement suggestion above your Home Feed, simply click the word Skip that appears when you hover your cursor to the right of the Endorse button. When you skip an endorsement suggestion, we won’t show you it again. 

You can remove an endorsement from your profile quickly and easily:

1. Go to your profile’s Info tab
2. Find the relevant skill and click the number next to it
3. A box will appear showing which researchers endorsed you for that skill
4. Hover your cursor over the researcher whose endorsement you want to remove
5. Click Remove endorsement on the right-hand side. 

To change or add disciplines to your profile, please go to your ResearchGate profile page. Click on the ‘Info’ tab, then scroll down. On the right-hand side, you'll see ‘Disciplines.’ Hover your mouse over the pencil icon, and click ‘Edit.’ You can now change or add up to three disciplines and subdisciplines.