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Supporting technicians across the Midlands

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Tech-09936

Supporting technicians across the Midlands

Midlands Innovation is a collaboration between the eight research intensive universities in the Midlands. The ambition is to drive cutting-edge research, innovation and skills development that will grow the high-tech, high-skilled economy of the Midlands and the UK.

More information about Midlands Innovation

strategy-map

  • Aston University
  • University of Birmingham
  • Cranfield University
  • Keele University
  • University of Leicester
  • Loughborough University
  • University of Nottingham
  • University of Warwick

History

The Midlands Innovation universities have over 2100 technical staff working in their institutions. Since 2015 the Midlands Innovation partnership has embarked on a programme of activities designed to increase the visibility of our technical workforce, to recognise its excellence and to start to think about collaboratively supporting its career development.

The Technician Commitment is a sector wide initiative led by the Science Council and supported by the Gatsby Foundation. The Commitment aims to ensure visibility, recognition, career development and sustainability for technicians working in higher education and research, across all disciplines. All eight members of the Midlands Innovation partnership were founding signatories of the Technician Commitment in 2017.

Our work in this area is led by our Technical Staff Strategy Committee which brings together technical managers from across the partnership to support our institutional responsibilities under the Technician Commitment and to explore innovative ways in which we can collaborate to further support our technical staff.

Our major areas of activity have included:

  • Establishing the UK Higher Education Technicians Summit; a national conference for technical staff working in higher education and research.
  • Establishing the Papin Prizes; a series of national awards to publicly recognise technical excellence in academia.
  • Piloting a collaborative placement programme to enable career development opportunities for our technical staff.
  • Piloting the delivery of shared soft skills training tailored for our technical colleagues.

TALENT allows us to make a step change in the scale of our delivery in this collaborative agenda. Through three focussed work packages, TALENT will lead and drive new understanding of, and a strategic approach to, the development of technical skills in universities and a stronger, more efficient, more engaged, more diverse and invested in technical community - a community who work in a culture where their contributions to research, teaching and knowledge exchange are recognised, their development and progression is encouraged and supported and their roles as professionals in higher education are respected and aspired to.

I am delighted that Midlands Innovation has been awarded this investment. TALENT will shine a light on the important role that technicians play in our universities and will enable us to deliver a step change in the career development opportunities we provide to this vital workforce. In addition,TALENT is an excellent example of how universities can collaborate to innovate in their operation. Collectively we have over 2100 technicians working in our eight universities. We will be sharing information on the nature of our technical workforces, collaborating to create new development opportunities for our technical staff and trialling interventions to address issues such as EDI and representation of technicians. By doing this in partnership we can share different approaches and experiences whilst creating a vibrant, connected and empowered technical community.

Professor Alec Cameron, Chair of the Midlands Innovation Board, Vice-Chancellor Aston University