The 2024 Collaboration Fund recipients announced

The Technician Commitment Collaboration Fund is a small grants scheme available exclusively to signatory institutions.

This year, funding of up to £1,000 was available for initiatives to bring technicians together in support of the Commitment’s aims – ensuring visibility, recognition, career development and sustainability for all technical staff in higher education and research.

As a sector-wide initiative, the Technician Commitment has always depended on collaboration to achieve our ambitions. The aim of the Collaboration Fund is to support innovative projects that seek to achieve better outcomes for technicians through activities which create and strengthen these networks of collaboration in innovative ways.

This year the Collaboration Fund received a large number of applications, and we were unfortunately unable to fund them all. The Technician Commitment are happy to provide feedback and support to help progress all applications and are delighted to announce the five successful projects are:

University of Salford and Nottingham Trent University – Creating a technician focussed podcast

Manchester Metropolitan University – Supporting the Northwest England Technician Network 

Newcastle University, Northumbria University and North Tyneside Learning Trust – Creating a technician careers video

UK Dementia Research Institutes in UCL, Cardiff & Edinburgh - Developing technical careers outreach from the UK Dementia Research Institute to secondary school-aged children from disadvantaged backgrounds in England, Scotland and Wales

King’s College London - London & Southeast Apprentice Technician Networking Event

Clare Stevenson, Associate Lead, Technician Commitment said:

“It is with great pleasure we were able support five grants this year to signatories looking to support of technicians through collaboration. This year’s applications spanned a range of different activities supporting the Technician Commitment’s aims of visibility, recognition, career development and sustainability. I look forward to seeing the exciting events, networking, training opportunities and media initiatives to come.”

For more information about becoming a signatory please contact: techscommit@gatsby.org.uk