Universities join initiative to support technicians

Nine universities, including Bath and Southampton, are the most recent signatories to an initiative to support technicians’ career development, bringing the total number of institutions on board to 75.

University of Bath, Coventry University, Durham University, Falmouth University, the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, the University of Roehampton, the University of Southampton, Staffordshire University, and York St John University have all signed up to the initiative, which celebrated its first anniversary at an event held at in London on 6 November.

David Sainsbury, a former UK minister for science and innovation, said that the Technician Commitment had “exceeded all expectations”, in the foreword to a report summing up its first year. “I am particularly pleased that the Technician Commitment has not been seen by signatories as a box-ticking exercise or as an empty pledge to simply publish on their institution’s website,” he said.