The Scotland Technician Network: A Landmark National Conference
A collaboration of six Scottish institutions (Universities of Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Strathclyde and West of Scotland), this project funded the first-ever all-Scotland technician conference.
Event Details
On 10 June 2025, 250 technical staff gathered at Bute Hall, University of Glasgow, for a day of knowledge sharing and celebration.
Diverse Representation
The event included representatives from 13 different organisations, including the James Hutton Institute and various Scottish universities.
Key Themes
The programme featured high-profile speakers, and showcased career pathway initiatives and featured "We are Technicians" success stories.
Financial Impact
The £1,000 grant was used exclusively to provide travel bursaries, enabling 36 technicians from outside Glasgow to attend via public transport.
Legacy
With over 85% of attendee’s eager for a follow-up, planning is already underway for a 2026 conference at Edinburgh’s McEwan Hall on 23 April 2026
Fostering Growth in Large Technical Networks
The University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, and University College London (UCL) partnered to address the unique challenges faced by technicians working within very large, complex institutions.
A Targeted Series
The team hosted three distinct professional development events in 2025:
- Outreach and Community Engagement (Hosted by Oxford)
- Grant Applications (Hosted by Cambridge)
- Career Development (Hosted by UCL)
Broad Reach
Information was shared across 15 institutions nationwide that employ 500+ technicians, helping to break down departmental silos.
Practical Outcomes
Participants engaged with senior leaders, explored technical career pathways, and attended a visit to the Science Museum’s David Sainsbury Gallery.
Future Impact
The project successfully identified specific training needs, and established a collaborative relationship between the institutions, which plan to continue working together on future projects It also kick-started a Higher Education Technician Takeover project at the Science Museum, planned for June 2026, in which over 60 technicians from 25 different higher education institutions will take over the David Sainsbury Gallery for two weeks to engage schoolchildren with technical careers via hands-on activities.
Exploring Collaborative Opportunities in Technical Services
This project initiated structured collaboration between Technical Services at University of Sussex and University of Brighton for the first time.
The Foundational Event
The £950 grant funded the first ever formal cross-institutional event on 3 June 2025, laying the foundations for an ongoing collaborative relationship.
Broad Engagement
The event brought over 100 technicians face-to-face, uniting counterparts from both institutions across a diverse range of disciplines, grades and roles. The project engaged senior leaders from both institutions and strengthened peer recognition across both institutions via structured discussions and shared showcases.
Roadmap Development
The event programme included cross-disciplinary roundtable discussions to gather technicians’ input on the two institutions’ unique specialisms and capabilities and areas of disciplinary overlap and separation. This began work on an action plan for sustainable joint activity, including exploring shared vendor contracts and proposals for contract diagrams and shared resources, as well as identifying priority areas for knowledge exchange, skills-sharing, shadowing opportunities and facility tours.
Practical Outcomes
Event feedback highlighted strong appetite for continued collaboration, including knowledge exchange, shadowing opportunities, skills swaps, facility tours and networking. Further networking, joint discussions and facility tours have already started across the two universities. A joint Teams channels has been created to improve cross-institutional communication.
Legacy
Planning is already underway for a joint technician conference/exhibition in summer 2026, as well as termly collaboration meetings.
Looking Ahead: 2026 Funding Cycle
The success of these 2025 projects demonstrates the power of small-scale funding to create large-scale impact and sustainable networks.
The 2026 Technician Commitment Collaboration Fund opened for applications in December 2025, with a closing date of 9 February 2026. Find out more here.
