The purpose of this case study is to examine how talent management is applied in a university environment and how development in leadership skills for the participants of a project affects their willingness to stay at the university. This study also highlights the purpose of using a strategy like talent management to keep key people in the organization to stay and also that theories about talent management needs to be complete with theories about loyalty and commitment. This is done through examining the project Real-- Research and Leadership that the University of Umeå provided for 21 researchers and the first round of the project took part between 2015 and 2016. The purpose of this project is to work as a supporting instance for the researcher’s research career in an long term goal to get the young prominent researchers to stay and keep working at the University. To do so, ReaL, as the project is commonly called, offered the researchers a course with the possibility to develop their leadership abilities that would help them in their future research career. But also to introduce them to interdisciplinary contacts in an attempt to broaden their research network and to give them an increased general knowledge sharing. The data gathering for this study was partly done through surveys that were handed out to the participants at the last day of the course and by interviews with selected participants from the course. The quantitative results of the study show that the participants showed a positive feeling against the impact on the participant’s willingness to stay at the University of Umeå and that the support for their research careers and an enhance in their ability in communication and conflict management was highly contributed towards their willingness to stay at the university. ReaL as a support tool for the participants was also a highly contributed factor for their willingness to stay. The Qualitative results on the other hand shows a more complex situation. Even thou that the project had a positive impact, other external factors paid more contribution to the researcher’s willingness to stay then what the quantitative results shows. These factors were the layout of the city of Umeå, their family situation and their partner’s works situation.