Holly Chetan-Welsh
Would you mind telling us about your roles – Celia, could we start with you?
Celia Monteiro Domingues
I’m a Research Development Coordinator. I used to be a researcher - I did a PhD and two postdocs before joining the Learning and Development Team at the ICR. It was there I found my passion - I love to support researchers.
Coincidentally, the Technician Commitment was launched in 2017, the same year I joined the team. A big part of my role now it is to support the Scientific Officers (SOs), which is how we refer to the technical staff at the ICR.
Holly
Thank you – Tatiana?
Tatiana McHardy
I'm a Senior Scientific Officer in the Chemistry division, in the Cancer Therapeutics Unit, focusing on developing new drugs for cancer treatment. I’ve been working at the Institute of Cancer Research for many years – October 1st will be my 20th anniversary! I've worked on many projects, including on two drugs that are in clinical trials.
I did the usual postdoc route, but when I was looking for a job, I wasn’t really interested in becoming a principal investigator (PI). Then I saw this technical job that was a bit more hands-on.
Holly
How did get ICR involved in the Technician Commitment?
Tatiana
Over ten years ago at the ICR we created the Scientific Officers Association (SOA) with the support of Learning and Development, to help the career development of SOs. We developed training courses, gave travel bursaries for SOs and created our own technical conference. I was involved since the beginning, in many roles, including Secretary, Athena Swan representative, and in 2017, I had the confidence to become Chair. That's when we came to hear about the Technician Commitment, and we persuaded the ICR to become the first signatory.
Holly
What are the benefits of being a signatory of the Technician Commitment?
Celia
In the beginning, I realised that compared to other research institutes and other universities, we were quite advanced in terms of the support that we were providing to technicians, and that gave us the opportunity to share best practice - what worked, what didn't work. But we have received so much in return because you get in touch with other research institutes like ours with people who are very dynamic, very engaged and who want to create something that we wouldn't be able to create alone.
We're all proud of the Technician Commitment because at the end of the day, whatever we create is for the benefit of the technical community.
We're all proud of the Technician Commitment because at the end of the day, whatever we create is for the benefit of the technical community.
Tatiana
We formed a group called the Research Institute Technician Group (RITG), which is a collaboration of 9 Research Institutes including The Francis Crick Institute, The Babraham Institute, The John Innes Centre, Wellcome Sanger, MRC institutes and STFC. We've organised two Research Institute Technician Symposium (RITS) conference stogether, and during the pandemic, we hosted of a lot of online seminars that brought people together.
Holly
Are there specific themes that come up repeatedly when talking about getting the foundations right for other organisations that are just starting out on their Technician Commitment journey?
Celia
I think the main challenge is engagement – because technicians are so busy, they can lose sight of other areas where they can develop professionally and personally. We have to start by engaging people with something that is useful for them, whether it is organising a series of seminars or providing travel bursaries to go and learn a new technique at another institute.
We have to start by engaging people with something that is useful for them.
Tatiana
People are also always very excited about, and have questions about, our technical conference. The ICR Technical conference grew with time - in the beginning it was just a couple of talks, and then it grew to include more activities. Now it includes the SOA Awards and we now have awards for best talk and poster. For the SOs that give talks at the conferences, it gives them more confidence and it’s good for their CV.
Holly
So, zooming out slightly. What do you feel is the contribution of technicians in the field of cancer research - why are they so important to what you do?
Tatiana
I think it's a fundamental and varied role - from developing or modifying assays, making new compounds that can lead to new drugs, to training post-docs and PhD students and maintaining the labs and core facilities. During the pandemic, most of the team leaders were working from home, and the SOs would be supporting the labs. Sometimes it was a bit overwhelming!
At ICR most of our SOs are highly skilled and trained, with lots of knowledge. Projects can take quite a long time and most of the SOs will be there for the whole time, while postdocs and PhD students come and go. So we are a core pillar for delivering the research.
We are a core pillar for delivering the research.
Celia
I second that completely. From the point of getting money to run a research project to actually getting the result is a long path, and the technical staff and scientific officers play a huge part in delivering it – put the research in practice, execute it, troubleshoot when things are not working, find the reason why they are not working and share that knowledge with their colleagues. The machine wouldn't work without them.
Holly
So, am I right in saying that your SOs have the opportunity to be part of the process of writing and publishing research?
Tatiana
Yes, in the ICR, many SOs contribute to, and are recognised in, papers .
Celia
Tina Daviter who sits in the Technician Commitment steering group is the Head of Core Facilities. One of her aims is that technical staff who work in her wider team are acknowledged in the publications that they contribute to. We have a policy to acknowledge Core Facilities contributions to scientific papers, but sometimes they are seen simply as service providers who don’t need further acknowledgement. We are trying to change that perception.
Tatiana
Some of these colleagues are actually developing new techniques - redesigning the assay, sometimes they need to troubleshoot and find what's not working.
Holly
So they’re innovating on the job?
Tatiana
Exactly!
Holly
What are the areas of the Technician Commitment that you are focusing on at the moment, or want to focus on in the future?
Celia
One area that has been a focus for us this past year is support for professional registration. I would say the vast majority of technical staff at ICR are not professionally registered. We ran a pilot programme to see how we could support technical staff who want to get accreditation, and even though numbers were small, I think people who have reached the end of it felt really empowered and learned a lot in the process. So now we're better prepared to support the second batch of people who are interested.
We want to try to reach more team leaders and get them more engaged. Our Technician Commitment steering group now includes a team leader and the Head of Core Facilities. This means we now are aware of things that we wouldn't be otherwise and the reverse as well – things like difficulties in retaining and recruiting technical staff and business continuity, which is crucial in Cancer research in general.
Holly
What do you feel have been the greatest impacts for your technical staff of being a signatory of Technician Commitment?
Celia
We now have a wider network with the other research institutes, that we can learn from. We organize a cross-institutional conference every 18 months (the RITS Conference), which allows people to network, learn about new things and expand their horizons. This is hugely useful.
The other thing is visibility - we have started to put communications higher on the agenda. It's very important that at the level of the Institute, we bring this awareness of the Technician Commitment and the SOA.
Tatiana
I would also say networking, because thanks to the different social media initiatives, technicians can see more opportunities for jobs, secondments or training. For example, myself a seven other SOs from the ICR recently finished a leadership programme for female technicians called the Herschel Programme for Women in Technical Leadership, organised by Midlands Innovation TALENT. I think if we were not part of the Technician Commitment, we would not have heard about this or had the opportunity to be part of it.
Holly
Is there anything else you'd like to mention?
Celia
I was just going to mention that last year Tatiana won the RITG Award for contributions to the Technician Commitment – Tatiana’s work has been crucial to develop the Technician Commitment at ICR!
Holly
Wow, congratulations!
Tatiana
Thank you!
