Technician Commitment Progress

We are currently in the final year of a 3 year action plan, although a lot of work goes on behind the scenes the steering group continue to work hard to progress the goals of the Technicians Commitment

Initial Meetings and the allocation of the steering group to represent all areas of technical members took place on 12th September 2018.

The Vice-Chancellor and Head of People and Organisational Effectiveness (P&OE) signed the Technicians' Commitment on 1st May 2019

Steering group members are:

  • Chair: Philip Barker (Physics) Deputy Dean FST,
  • John Dwyer (FHM) Initiator and External Ambassador,
  • Richard Haley (Physics) Academic Representation,
  • Melanie Milne FST HR Partner,
  • Jessica Fisher (Engineering) Communication Co-ordinator,
  • Lucy Wilson (Physics) Apprentice Representation,
  • Tim Gregson (LEC) Union Representation,
  • Megan Pendlebury (Facilities),
  • Helen Quirk (Chemistry) Technical Director,
  • Elisabeth Shaw (BLS) FHM Faculty Representation,
  • Alexander Flahive (FASS) FASS Faculty Representation,
  • Gavin Bland (ISS) ISS Representation,
  • Mags Powers (P&OE) Administrator.

The Technician website was launched on Wednesday 30th October 2019, at the first Technician Forum of this academic year.

The website is now live and can be found in the A to Z on the intranet.

Helen Quirk and Jess Fisher have actions to keep the website maintained and up to date.

Year 1 goals have been completed, some examples of these are:

  • Present a Technician’s Commitment paper to the Faculty Research Committees to raise these two issues with faculty research committee chairs and make committees aware of ‘Technical Commitment’.
  • Map university wide committee structure
  • New webpage to be developed and case studies of technician’s careers present.
  • All LU technicians to be notified by email of relevant conferences and their attendance recorded.
  • A workshop on apprentice schemes to be programmed into a forthcoming Technical Forum.
  • FST to pilot technical representation regarding committees.
  • Bimonthly group meetings established

Year 2 goals have been completed and examples include:

  • Ensure that University Senior management is aware of the contributions that the technical workforce makes including the representation of technicians on University committees.
  • A team from the steering group to meet bi-monthly to review past actions and consider future ones
  • Technical staff to be addressed in Athena SWAN applications.
  • Technical Forum to incorporate annual technical conference with poster sessions and prizes.
  • Explore the possibility of designated technical awards at the Faculty and University levels

Examples of Year 3 goals

  • Map career pathways and ensure they are visible
  • Explore Lancaster University’s need for the Science Council’s ‘Employer Champions’ scheme
  • Appropriate, induction training development and CPD activities are available. Ensuring sufficient funding is available to enable this
  • Accreditation of Teaching practice to Higher Education Academies to be investigated
  • Secondment, placement and work shadowing programmes for technical staff to develop new skills to be investigated

Technicians Career Pathways

The project to establish Technical Staff Career Pathways has now commenced following support from the University Executive Board (UEB) and a Town Hall briefing in February.

The aim of the project is to agree a career framework for technical staff that clarifies: 

  • Career pathways and progression routes for technical staff
  • Establishes consistent role expectations, clarifying the generic knowledge, skills and experience required for all roles. This turn will provide the basis for individual development planning for technicians in conjunction with their line managers

The timeline for the project is below. Regular updates will be provided at the Technician’s termly forum events and via briefings. 

  • Audit Current Technical Role - all Faculties/Departments and Research Technicians
  • Career Frameworks x
  • HE Sector
  • Determine best framework for Career Pathways at Lancaster University
  • Develop template Job Descriptions and Professional Services for generic roles
  • Finalise recommended Career Pathways Framework and generic Job Descriptions and Professional Services
  • Recommendations and Approval from University Senior Leadership and Trade Unions.
  • Implement Framework
  • Map Current role to generic Job Descriptions and Professional Services

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