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The purpose of this paper is to investigate what employers seek when recruiting library and information professionals in the UK and whether professional skills, generic skills or personal qualities are most in demand.

A content analysis of a sample of 180 advertisements requiring a professional library or information qualification from Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professional's Library + Information Gazette over the period May 2006‐2007.

The findings reveal that a multitude of skills and qualities are required in the profession. When the results were compared with Information National Training Organisation and Library and Information Management Employability Skills research, customer service, interpersonal and communication skills, and general computing skills emerged as the requirements most frequently sought by employers. Overall, requirements from the generic skills area were most important to employers, but the research also demonstrates that professional skills are still valued. An unanticipated demand for profession related experience was found: this was the single most frequently sought requirement in the advertisements analysed.

Although the Gazette is the largest source of library and information jobs, it does not provide a complete picture of the employment market.

The paper contributes to debates about the skillsbase of the profession, and raises awareness of the abilities professionals need to cultivate in order to progress through their careers.

Research can be an influential driver in raising care home standards and the well-being and human rights of residents. This paper aims to present a case for how a relational research capacity building programme could advance this agenda.

This study uses Axel Honneth’s Recognition Theory as a lens through which to explore organisational and institutional factors (such as research capacity and investment) that can either enable or limit “recognition” in the context of research in care homes. This paper draws on recent evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK and worldwide, to argue that such a relational capacity building agenda is even more pressing in the current context, and that it resonates with evidence from existing relational capacity building initiatives.

A lack of relevant research arguably contributed to the crisis experienced by the care home sector early in the pandemic, and there are only tentative signs that residents, care home providers and staff are now informing the COVID-19 research agenda. Evidence from pre COVID-19 and insights from Honneth’s Recognition Theory suggest that relational approaches to building research capacity within the care home sector can better generate evidence to inform practice.

This is a novel application of recognition theory to research in the care home sector. Drawing on theory, as well as evidence, has enabled the authors to provide a rationale as to why relationship-based research capacity building in care homes warrants further investment.