Skills and Competencies Expected From Hei Students: Case Study of A Less Favoured Region

The main objective of this study is to understand what are the skills and compe-tences expected from graduates in a context of disadvantaged regions. The paper is based on a qualitative case study from Trás-os-Montes sub-region (in Portu-gal). This region is an example of a disadvantaged region, which is building a strong based knowledge transfer system in order to emphases the interaction be-tween region and the Higher Education Institution (and research) collaboratively. Building institutional capacity could be a development tool to these less favoured regions to improve their economical processes. The results identify the critical skills for each sector of activity.