Although there is general consensus across the medical education community that graduates should be competent in the sciences there is little agreement as to what is meant by “competency”. Many nations are moving to “competency-based” or competency influenced education. This symposium will explore how “competency” is being interpreted and implemented in various educational venues around the world. One such venue is the United States. In 2007 Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) the largest philanthropy in the United States dedicated to biomedical research and science education partnered with the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) to convene a group dedicated to defining the core science that should be mastered by students by the time of their graduation from medical school. The committee was charged with not only establishing the graduating scientific abilities for physicians but also defining the science students should have mastered by the time they matriculate into medical school. The committee composed of clinical, medical school basic science and premedical science teachers met over a period of 18 months. The report of the committee published in 2009 titled Scientific Foundations for future Physicians (SFFP) https://www.aamc.org/students/download/302644/data/hhmi.pdf 1) established competencies as the goal of medical science education, 2) defined eleven overarching principles for science in medical education and 3) set eight science competencies for graduating physicians and eight competencies that all students should have mastered on matriculation to medical school. For each competency, Learning Objectives and Examples were given to guide the establishment of expectations as to the appropriate depth and application at which the competencies should be accomplished by learners. It was recognized by the SFFP Committee that the growing knowledge of the natural world, especially the biological sciences, precludes the mastery of all science knowledge. Hence some information while important in particular disciplines or certain realms of endeavor are less important to understanding human biology, pathophysiological processes and the treatment of disease and should not be required. Further, recognizing that certain important concepts are shared across the natural science disciplines, the committee suggested that integration of learning might be more efficient than the separated learning of a concept in multiple disciplines. Acknowledging the increasing need to understand and apply quantitative information to medical practice the SFFP committee emphasized a need for a greater mastery of mathematical concepts statistics and computational sciences. The SFFP Report and the Report of the MR5 Committee which reviewed the content and structure of the Medical College Aptitude Test (MCAT) used by most US medical schools to evaluate the preparedness of students wishing to enter medical school have influenced the nature of the revised MCAT to be initiated in 2015 https://www.aamc.org/students/applying/mcat/mcat2015/. These reports are stimulating US colleges and Universities to examine how competencies in the sciences might be more effectively learned. Furthermore many medical schools are reexamining their admission requirements, the structure of their curricula and the methods of instruction.