EHTAN will establish a skills and competencies matrix and methods of comparison to enable European nursing staff to be more easily integrated into the healthcare systems of other Member States.The UK partner will conduct interviews with nurses from other EU countries working in the UK (at 2 years post-registration level) to establish their skills and competencies and also to ask their experiences and opinion regarding working in the sector in another European country. The results will be used to inform the design of interview packs for partner hospitals to then conduct similar interviews in the remaining partner countries.A phase of comparison and assessment of both qualifications and levels of expertise of European nursing staff will then be undertaken by the project and a comparison document produced (initial skills and competencies matrix) detailing the strengths, weaknesses and disparities relating to the competencies of nursing staff across Europe.A further stage in the project will be the co-ordination and synthesis of all data collected leading to a final draft of the 'skills competencies matrix' which will then go to translation for final release in each of the involved partner languages (NL, EL, DE, ES, & EN).A dedicated website will be developed in order that the results of the individual project phases can be posted and discussed amongst the participating project partners. At the end of the project, end results will be circulated to relevant nursing/clinical press in addition to the presentation of project papers to a series of national and European conferences.