The Technician Commitment is a UK-wide initiative to ensure visibility, recognition, career development and sustainability for all technicians working in higher education and research across all disciplines. With over 630 highly trained and qualified technicians at Glasgow, they make up a significant proportion of our University community, making a vital contribution to research, the training of PhD and postdoctoral researchers, and undergraduate teaching. The University recognises that through their skills, knowledge and professionalism our technicians provide a rich specialist resource we couldn’t live without.

Many challenges face our technical community in the years ahead, as science becomes more complex and interconnected and engineering requires increasingly high level practical technical skills in emerging fields and technologies. Moreover in the next 10 years there will be a significant turnover of technical staff, as valued colleagues move on and new technicians join us with ever higher expectations of investment in their futures. Implementing the Technician Commitment will help us to ensure technical roles are an attractive, challenging and fulfilling career option for this, the next, and future generations. The Technician Commitment will challenge us to invest more deeply and in new ways in the career development and nurturing of the skills and talents of our technicians to ensure we attain a sustainable workforce and environment that enables all to fulfil their potential.

Further to our previous message, we would like to provide an update on the progress we are making in delivering the Technician Commitment. Technicians are encouraged to get involved in the local consultations which will be coming their way soon and to look out for engagement activities across the University. It is vital that all we do to implement the Technician Commitment is shaped and lead by the very technicians who can make it happen and will benefit the most from it. We have set up a Technician Commitment portal on the on the University's website which provides useful information about what it is, who is behind it, the key drivers it promotes and a copy of our Action Plan.

To ensure the signatories to the Technician Commitment make progress against the key drivers, we have agreed a 24 month future action plan, a copy of which is available on the website at:https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/humanresources/techniciancommitment/

If you have any feedback or questions on the Action Plan, please contact us on seng-tec-commitment@glasgow.ac.uk

First published: 25 September 2018

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