About us
The University of Greenwich is proud to be a signatory of the Technician Commitment, a university and research institution initiative, hosted by The UK Institute for Technical Skills & Strategy. Being a signatory means the University has pledged to support the visibility, recognition, career development, sustainability and impact of all technical staff.
Key achievements from the University's initial 2-year action plan include a university-wide technician survey to better understand the technical workforce and remits; experiences and aspirations, confirmation that suitably qualified technicians can supervise PhD students and lead research activity, and development of a new Technician Competency and Recognition Framework.
Our action plan
The below details the University's Action plan for the next 36 months (2025- 2028)
| VISIBILITY | 1. | Create and monitor a range of communication channels to allow information exchange with- and between- technician community |
| 2. | Embed and evolve culture change through the technician web portal | |
| 3. | Consolidate Technician representation in School and Faculty meetings, and other university roles, including curriculum development | |
| 4. | Weave technician profiles further into external faculty web presence and/or other university groups | |
| 5. | Provide opportunities for technicians to visit other areas within the university as per the Cross Faculty learning model. | |
| 6. | Encourage marketing to include more Technical members of staff in marketing material | |
| RECOGNITION | 1. | Source and promote funding for technicians to apply for professional recognition |
| 2. | Create Technician Awards event to be integrated into the technician away day | |
| 3. | Encourage nominations from Technicians against the criteria for the Staff Awards | |
| 4. | Collaborate with Greenwich Research and Innovation team to ensure research and consultancy opportunities are made available to technical staff, including application support | |
| 5 | Creating of Technician Newsletter to publicize what technicians are involved with, celebrating technicians & social media channels | |
| 6 | Ensure standard University policies regarding flexible or hybrid working are accessible to Technicians. | |
| CAREER DEVELOPEMENT | 1. | Consolidate and review the career development framework. |
| 2. | Run training and networking workshops as part of a biennial technicians awayday. | |
| 3. | Ring fence funding to support technicians to attend relevant conferences | |
| 4. | Promote opportunities for attending ITSS technical training | |
| 5 | Map newly developed Job descriptions to current Technical staff | |
| 6 | Identify job shadowing opportunities within the university and with other institutions | |
| SUSTAINABILITY | 1. | Establish a Technical Managers Forum |
| 2 | Create Technician Awards event to be integrated into the technician away day | |
| 3 | Appointing a Technical lead for the Technician Commitment | |
| 4 | Develop a process for hosting T Level placement students | |
| 5 | Contribute with opportunities to promote technical careers | |
| EVALUATING IMPACT | 1. | Technical staff response in the staff survey |
| 2. | Evaluate engagement of the technician’s communication channels | |
| 3. | Monitor technician involvement in events and professional registration | |
| 4. | People Directorate to track career progress of the technical workforce, to provide annual demographics to include date by grades, gender and other protected characteristics possible in line with GDPR | |
| 5. | Review of progress to be conducted and communicated annually |