The future of technical skills, roles and careers
Released this week, a report ‘The TALENT Commission: Technical skills, roles and careers in UK higher education and research’ presents the findings of an investigation into the higher education sector’s future need for technical talent.
Since 2020, the RSC has been a supporter of the Technician Commitment, working to improve the landscape for technical professionals in UK HEIs and Research Institutes, and beyond that, in industry and schools.
We welcome this report from MI TALENT. The targeted recommendations provide a framework for stakeholders and influencers to work to as we strive to create a culture that is nurturing of a diverse technical talent base and recognises the value of technical staff in Higher Education.
As the UK’s Professional Body for the chemical sciences, we are pleased to take this opportunity to respond to the recommendations for Professional Bodies and Learned Societies and invite other stakeholders to get in touch with us to explore opportunities to collaborate on implementing the recommendations pertinent to their own sector.
| Recommendation | Our response |
| Formally support and engage with the Technician Commitment and the new collaborative entity (provisionally to be called the UK Institute for Technical Skills & Strategy [working title]), to provide a unified voice to government when discussing sector and policy developments. |
Through our Technician Commitment action plan, we support technical staff in the focus areas of Career Development, Recognition, Sustainability and Visibility. We look forward to engaging with the UK Institute for Technical Skills & Strategy. |
| Actively pursue engagement with the technical community. | We have established a Technician Rep Network, through which we invite technicians to engage with our relevant activities. |
| Work to address equality, diversity, and inclusivity considerations for technical staff through implementation of targeted technician-specific initiatives and/or their inclusion within sector-wide initiatives. Acknowledge that workforce characteristics of technical communities are often not uniform (e.g. reported differences by discipline area), with different approaches potentially needed for different technical communities. |
One of the key aims of our I&D Strategy to 2025 is to support early career chemists: encompassing all career routes to the profession, including technicians. This strategy relates to all RSC activities and programming. Our Inclusion and Diversity Fund is open for all to apply for financial support on projects that aim to investigate or address inclusion and diversity issues in the chemical sciences, including projects specific to technicians. RSC webinars such as ChemCareers are running technician-focused events in 2022, together with dedicated conference for technical staff at any career stage. |
| Support outreach and public engagement around technical careers. | Technicians are encouraged to apply for our outreach fund, without needing to be a member of the RSC, to undertake public engagement activities and raise the profile of technical careers. We have also added a number of technical career profiles to our A Future in Chemistry site, which aims to help young people make informed choices about careers in chemical science. |
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Ensure provision and access to professional development opportunities and training for technical staff, including professional registration. |
Through our membership of the Science Council, we are licensed to award the professional awards of RSciTech and RSci, among others, and have a dedicated team to support technical staff to achieve these designations. Since becoming supporters of the Technician Commitment, we have launched two new grants, exclusively to support the professional development of technicians. Working in partnership with Sheffield University’s HEaTED training division, we offer CPD courses, specifically designed for technicians in HE, at a discounted rate for RSC members. |
| Ensure representation of technical staff on boards and committees, either through a designated seat or through a technical advocate. |
We're proactively encouraging committees to consider diversity and to aim for a committee representative of their community. We have also recently introduced a new rule allowing our networks to have up to two appointed committee members where they have not been able to meet their diversity and skills needs through the normal process. Technicians are encouraged to pursue a position on boards and committees when openings arise. We recognise confidence is key in these situations, so are also developing activities for technicians to build confidence and feel empowered to apply for roles in our governance. |
| Ensure conferences and events are inclusive of technical staff. |
The RSC runs a diverse range of conferences and events suitable for technical staff, organised by committees from our member networks and representative of their interests. We recognise that for our networks to prosper and deliver against global challenges, we must attract, develop and retain a diverse range of talented people on our committees. Committees flourish when they embrace different perspectives and encourage members from different backgrounds, different career stages and with different experiences to inform their outlook and programme. |
| Support appropriate inclusion of technical staff as authors, co-authors, or contributors on published papers and presentations, including clear guidance for appropriate inclusion at relevant stages. |
Our journal authorship guidelines are inclusive of technical staff, saying: “Authors have a responsibility to give due acknowledgement to all workers contributing to the work, including technical staff and data professionals. Those who have contributed significantly to the research should be listed as co-authors.” To ensure authors receive appropriate credit for their work, we also strongly encourage the inclusion of author contribution statements within our journal articles and recommend the use of the CRediT taxonomy for contribution descriptions. |
Dr Helen Pain, CEO of the Royal Society of Chemistry, who was a member of the TALENT Policy Commission, chaired by former RSC President Sir John Holman, said: “Technicians are integral members of the chemical science community, which is why I am so proud to chair the Steering Board of the Technician Commitment, which we support as an organisation. The four pillars of the Technician Commitment are visibility, recognition, career development and sustainability, and we are pleased to be working on a number of initiatives to support technicians, addressing each of these pillars – with the aim of celebrating technicians and enabling everyone to achieve their full potential. We also want to ensure that technicians, across all sectors, have a prominent voice.”
Technician Commitment Project Lead at the Royal Society of Chemistry, Catherine Tuckey RSciTech MRSC, said: “I was really pleased to attend the launch of the TALENT commission report. I’m keen to continue and strengthen support for technicians, and I believe the recommendations published in the report are an excellent structure for all those involved.
We have recently seen first-hand the vital role technicians play in high pressure situations, demonstrating their ability to adapt and sustain places like laboratories, and contribute to the important work we have all benefitted from in the past few years.
I’m pleased that this report encompasses a range of areas to foster collaboration and communication across departments, disciplines, and the wider scientific landscape. Collecting insight from technical colleagues allows us to develop our support to be more inclusive, and to contribute to policy matters, for example through our biennial Pay and Reward survey, and our report on the Science Technician Workforce in English Secondary Schools.
As a former technician myself, I feel particularly strongly that raising the profile of technical staff is key to this work. I’m keen to highlight how the RSC can contribute to this and empower technicians themselves to highlight their contributions. We see a technical career as something to aspire to and be proud of, so support ventures to share experiences with young people, and champion vocational routes into technical roles through our accreditation scheme. We offer support to technicians at all career stages, and aid progression through development opportunities like our technician grants, professional registration and collaboration with training providers like HEaTED.
I’m proud to be working alongside MI TALENT and our fellow professional societies to continue the momentum of technician support as championed in the Technician Commitment.”
If you would like to find out more about the RSC’s work in these areas, please get in touch.
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