Technician Commitment

As a signatory of the national Technician Commitment, we champion visibility, recognition, career development, and sustainability of our technical staff.

At LSTM, technicians are defined as staff who are trained in techniques, equipment, or technologies that are necessary to deliver the aims of a research project. This includes roles that contribute to maintenance and development of the environment, resources, and facilities, as well as those working directly on the practical application of projects.

We support our LSTM technicians in line with the four key areas of the Technician Commitment. Read our Technician Commitment Action Plan 2024-2027.

• Visibility: our objective is for all technicians at LSTM to be clearly identified and celebrated, online and in person. We do this with up-to-date staff profiles and feature technician-led innovations on our website. Our technical staff are also embedded in committees across LSTM, ensuring they have a voice in strategic decisions. Beyond LSTM, we work to build relationships with technical groups through the North West Technician Network to enable knowledge exchange and collaboration.
• Recognition: LSTM has sponsored the annual Technician Appreciation Day since 2022 to help staff understand the hard work and role technicians play. We actively support technicians with external awards with success at the THE Awards and Papin awards. Our inclusive publication and grant policies ensure technicians can be authors and presenters, and we encourage conference attendance, with budgets and mentoring to help them shine.
• Career development: The number of senior technician roles at LSTM increased by 125% between 2019 and 2024. Our HR teams provide tailored guidance on regrading and salary benchmarking, and we share case studies of technical career progression to inspire technicians of all grades.
• Sustainability: We are reviewing approaches to building shared technical platforms to create career opportunities and improve the retention of technical staff. We also  have an ambition to create a technical lead role.