University's Commitment to Technicians secures Impact Award

A drive to champion Technicians and their contributions at Harper Adams University has been recognised with an award for the impact it has made.

This work has seen action taken across the institution over the last three years to boost the recognition, visibility and sustainability of technical skills – as well as to the career development of Technicians.

As we mark eight years of the Technician Commitment this weekend, Head of Technical Development and Laboratory Manager Dr Victoria Talbot looks back at some recent achievements in this guest blog.

It was great to pick up the award on behalf of everyone at Harper Adams!

We submitted our self-assessment and new Technician Commitment Action Plan (2025 – 2028) in January and received some great feedback from the assessors.

The feedback particularly commended us for our seven years blog post and our technicians' conference, which they loved, as well as providing lots of helpful advice for our work over the next period.

Off the back of the self-assessment we were chosen to receive an Award of Impact at the Technician Commitment’s signatory event held at Queen’s University Belfast – their first signatory event in Northern Ireland.

I’d like to thank everyone at Harper Adams who has been involved in contributing to this achievement - particularly members of the Facilities Group, both past and present, and our new Technician Commitment Steering Group.

As part of our improvements in our commitment to technicians, I have a new title and role – Head of Technical Development and Laboratory Manager.

The ‘Head of Technical Development’ part is a real first for Harper Adams as it is a strategically important position.

It requires me to do some of the things I was already doing, such as chairing the Facilities Group, organising the Technicians Conference, and sitting on the University’s Academic Leadership Group, as well as some new things.

New aspects of the role include being the Technician Commitment Lead for Harper Adams and chairing the new Technician Commitment Steering and Planning Group. 

I am also tasked with developing and implementing a new technical development strategy across the University which supports the Technician Commitment’s pillars of visibility, recognition, career development, and sustainability - something Harper Adams has not had before.

It is a very exciting development, both for our technical community and for the institution, particularly as we will be joining the ranks of other organisations in higher education and research, most of whom are much larger than us, who have also taken this important step. I’m certainly looking forward to working on this over the coming months and bringing it to fruition.

This new position is in response to the 2022 Midlands Innovation TALENT Commission report,  which called on employers of technical staff, as well as funders and government departments to take a strategic approach to ensure the sustainability and appropriateness of technical skills and careers, at both a local and national level.

This includes succession planning in individual organisations, investment in a new pipeline of technical talent, and horizon scanning new and emerging technologies and skills.

I am glad to see the strategic importance of technical skills, roles and careers being recognised at an institutional level – and what is more, we are the first of the GuildHE members to have such a role!

As part of this new focus, we’re also currently sharing lots of info on technician development opportunities – such as those offered by the Institute for Technical Skills and Strategy (ITSS) as well as those internally.

This already looks like it’s bearing fruit – my colleague, Jane Cooper, attended an ITSS session on building technician networks and as a result of this we met with a technician from another institution, and we are now actively exploring collaboration opportunities!

It is true that #TechniciansMakeitHappen!