Research Culture – Recognising and developing our technical colleagues through the Technician Commitment

Emma McArdle, Project and Operations Manager for Technical Strategy and Operations

Research culture theme(s):  Inclusively working together; Assessment and recognition; Career development and wellbeing  

Please can you explain what the Technician Commitment is and how it relates to research culture?   

The Technician Commitment is an initiative which aims to improve the visibility, recognition, career development, and sustainability of technical careers. It is homed under the UK Institute for Technical Skills and Strategy (UKITSS) funded by Research England. We signed up as a founding signatory in 2017 and are now working on our third action plan which ensures a grassroots approach to improvement initiatives. There are currently five services involved at our University; Technical Strategy and Operations, IT Services, Digital, Research Software and Analytics, and the Library.

Which elements of the Technician Commitment most relate to research culture and how?   

The Technician Commitment is focused on improving the understanding of the role of Technicians in supporting research and education. Technicians and technical professionals can be found curating, conceptualising, analysing, supervising, supporting, and delivering research and education, but their role has historically been misunderstood and undervalued. Improving this recognition of technical colleagues and their contributions to research naturally leads to an improvement in research culture as we create inclusive environments which celebrate the entire research community.

What benefits does the Technician Commitment bring to creating a more positive research culture? 

Sometimes, as mentioned above, it’s as simple as highlighting the breadth and depth of work which technicians do to support and deliver research outputs. Simply being recognised can go a huge way to improving culture. Another example of something the wider Technician Commitment community has improved over the last few years is the explicit inclusion of technicians as able to be named as project-lead (PI) or co-lead (CO) on some grant applications (this was either explicitly banned or otherwise omitted which led to many thinking it wasn’t possible). Through the changes in these rules by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) as part of their Technician Commitment People and Culture Action Plan, and our encouragement of our technical experts at our university we have seen a growing number of technicians named as Co or PIs over the last few years. This breaks down assumptions about technical careers within the higher education industry that they are somehow less important than an academic career.

Can you provide any examples, evidence or feedback from those who have positively benefitted from the Technician Commitment? 

We submit a detailed self-assessment of our action plan at the end of each run, with our last submission being in January 2024. The full self-assessment and new action plan are available on our website for anyone to see, including the peer reviewed feedback we received too. A few specific examples include the introduction of the institutional Attribution Policy, the undertaking of a review on Research Culture from a Technician’s perspective, and ensuring the inclusion of Research Technical Professionals in the Researcher Development Toolkit resources and training for early career researchers.

How can colleagues play their part and where can people find out more? 

The best place to keep up to date is through our SharePoint site. Here we update news stories and report on progress throughout the year. You can also get in touch by emailing techniciancommitment@exeter.ac.uk; we are always looking for people to get involved in our work, either as a technician yourself, or as a champion and support of technical colleagues and careers!

For more information please contact: