Accessibility statement

Our commitment to technicians

Posted on 12 December 2018

At a recent event in the Tower of London, Lord Sainsbury presented a team from the University with a plaque to recognise our progress as a signatory of the Technician Commitment in its first year.

Our Technician Commitment team

  • Simon Breeden
  • Sarah Farrell
  • Brian Fulton
  • Bob Hide
  • Corrine Howie
  • Lucy Hudson
  • Abigail Mortimer
  • Andrew Pratt

The Technician Commitment is a university and research institution initiative, supported by the Science Council and the Gatsby Charitable Foundation's Technicians Make It Happen campaign. It aims to ensure visibility, recognition, career development and sustainability for technicians working in higher education and research, across all disciplines.

A team of staff from HR and academic departments has been working hard to document the University's support for staff in technical roles, and to ensure that information about opportunities like training and professional recognition is freely available.

The York Technician Commitment team with the award of submission presented by Lord Sainsbury.

We were one of the 36 founding signatories, were presented with an award of submission to mark becoming a signatory of the Technician Commitment. Feedback on the submission was positive and constructive, and particularly praised the fact that technician development is already well embedded, and that we offer equal access to development opportunities for all staff:

"York are clearly an active player in technician development and activities were in place well before they signed the Technician Commitment. Their TechYork network is well established, having hosted ten annual conferences and should be commended as sector leading practice. It is fantastic to see that technical staff have built strong relationships with senior (and sector) leaders such as Sir John Holman. A particularly positive point to comment on is the mention of equality and parity of esteem between staff members which is evidenced by internal development courses being open to all staff, regardless of role, equality in terms and conditions and a single grading structure. The ethos of parity of esteem should be commended."

Our work on Technician Commitment will continue with a survey intended to find out more about the skills and development skills of our technical staff. You can find out more about our work in this area at a forthcoming In a nutshell presentation on 18 December and on the TechYork website: