Sir Martin Poliakoff, Professor of Chemistry at Nottingham University and star of the Periodic Videos, gave the first keynote presentation. Titled ‘How Technicians Built My Career’ he described in detail a long list of technicians that had contributed and enabled his career success.

The ‘Technician Commitment’ launched in May 2017 and was a repeated theme throughout this conference. Set up by the Science Council and the Gatsby Charitable Foundation in part to address the shortfall of technicians across the sector, its aims are to ensure visibility, recognition, career development and sustainability for technicians working in higher education and research.

There were three workshop sessions which covered broad topics including Health and Safety, Apprenticeships, Mental Health, Athena SWAN & Technicians, Passivhaus (Energy Efficiency in Buildings), Strategies for Technical Services and an inspiring workshop on Outreach activities in Universities led by Technical staff.

The final session included a presentation by Rob Hardwick, Senior Innovation and Skills manager from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), introducing aspects of the forthcoming Action Plan for Technical Researchers, which is due later this year. He included results from a recent survey detailing figures such as the contribution of technical staff to academic papers, first authorship (20%), grant writing and critically the lack of a clear professional development path for technical staff. There was suggestion of establishing fellowships for technical specialists and the need to address the lack of technical leadership in organisational structures within higher education.

Prof Pete Licence, Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Carbon Neutral Laboratory at Nottingham University, gave a second keynote titled ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’. He showcased the ground-breaking construction of the building, its capabilities and the equally groundbreaking research being carried out within the Carbon Neutral Laboratory, all facilitated by Technical staff.

The conference championed Technical staff within universities. Hopefully ongoing support for the Technician Commitment and the forthcoming Action Plan for Technical Researchers from UKRI will begin to address the growing shortfall in technical staff and their invaluable contribution to successful teaching and research within higher education.

Dr Natalie Homer is the manager of the Edinburgh Clinical Research Facility Mass Spectrometry Core, hosted in the Centre for Cardiovascular Sciences (CVS) at the QMRI, Little France. You can find out more about the Mass Spec Core via their website and Twitter feed, @EdMassSpecCore.