Fiona Alderson, Technical Services Manager for Sciences and Engineering, gives a run down of the Science Council’s Technical Manager’s in Higher Education Summer Lunch in September 2017.

On 8 September, the Science Council hosted a lunch in the beautiful Burlington House in London to provide Technical Managers in Higher Education with a forum to learn about recent sector developments and to share challenges, opportunities and best practice.  I was delighted to have the opportunity to attend representing The University of Edinburgh; thirteen other UK universities were represented including UCL, KCL, Sheffield, Exeter, Glasgow and Cardiff.  The current  hot  topic  for  Technical  Managers  is  the  Technician Commitment, to which the University of Edinburgh has recently signed.  The Science Council are working with the signatories of the Technician Commitment to address key issues affecting the technical community in academia and research; the five key areas of the commitment are Visibility, Recognition, Career Development, Sustainability and Evaluating Impact.

As most of the other universities represented at the lunch have also signed up to the Technician Commitment, it was useful for me to hear what actions they are taking, and planning to take, in order to achieve the aims of the commitment.  We also shared experiences relating to recruitment, training, management structures etc. and I found it enlightening to find we mostly have the same issues but have found differing ways to deal with them. As a member of the Technician Support Steering Group,  I  am looking forward to being a part of this exciting initiative to support the recognition and development of the technicians who play a vital, but rarely acknowledged role in the achievements of the students and researchers across the university.

Fiona Alderson, Technical Services Manager for Science and Engineering

Reposted from “NETWORK”, School of Engineering Staff News