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At ÎÞÂ붯»­ we celebrate the work of our technicians every day – but once a year, we also bring the community together for an annual conference.

In this guest blog, Head of Technical Development and Laboratory Manager Dr Victoria Talbot looks back at the third of these yearly conferences.

Our annual Technicians’ Conference at ÎÞÂ붯»­ was truly a wonderful – if somewhat exhausting – day!

Each year I think it will get easier, and each year it seems to be ever more involved than the last. I think it’s because the quality of the programme has increased year on year, with even more nominations for our Technical Excellence Awards and because we had so many more sponsors and exhibitors than ever – with more than 100 delegates, suppliers, speakers, and workshop and tour providers alongside our facilities’ display stands and activities.

In fact, we had so many that we had to spread into the neighbouring Weston foyer!

We had an amazing array of guest speakers and workshop providers, and I was pleased that we managed to tweak the programme’s timings to allow colleagues to attend two workshop and tour sessions rather than just one.  

One of our keynotes, Professor Simon Hettrick from the University of Southampton, introduced us to the – an initiative which he chairs - and gave us all a great deal to think about in terms of non-traditional research outputs and the vital research contributions from staff with ‘hidden roles’. Post-conference feedback showed that he was a real highlight!

Dr Simon Breeden spoke about the impact and progress of the Technician Commitment sector initiative and wide range of professional development opportunities for technical staff through the UK Institute of Technical Skills and Strategy. I gave an overview of our progress at Harper Adams and we also had two internal speakers, Fred Baker and Kate Robinson.

Technically (if you’ll pardon the pun!), Fred is now external as he retired in June. However, we knew that we had to invite him back and ask him to share with us his wisdom and insight over what was a very long and productive career. He did it with tremendous humour and skill, cleverly weaving in the popular music tracks from the different stages of his career. Delegates thoroughly enjoyed what he had to share with us all and I had a number of messages from colleagues lamenting that they had not been able to join us.

Kate was also wonderful. Focusing on her role as sector manager on the Future Farm she impressed upon us the value and privilege of being a technician and how honoured she was to have been nominated and then shortlisted in the Times Higher Awards Outstanding Technician of the Year. Feedback that we received was that she spoke with “real heart”. I completely agree – her pride in being a technician shone through.

Competition for our Technical Excellence Awards was a lot stronger this year with more than double the number of nominations compared with the inaugural awards last year!

They are clearly becoming a programme fixture.

Our expert panel of judges, drawn from areas across the University representing the different categories, carefully examined all the nominations and gave awards for Outstanding Contributions to Learning and Teaching, Research, Knowledge Exchange, and Environmental Sustainability.

There were also gave two new awards this year: Outstanding Support to MPhil/PhD Support, and Outstanding Technician.

Awards were given as follows:

• Outstanding Contribution to Teaching and Learning – Tom Howes and Nikoletta Foskolou
• Outstanding Contribution to Research – Danielle Henderson-Holding
• Outstanding Contribution to Knowledge Exchange – Jane Cooper
• Outstanding Contribution to Environmental Sustainability – Chris Ruffley
• Outstanding Contribution to MPhil/PhD Support – Rachel Cope
• Outstanding Technician – Jane Cooper

The award of Outstanding Technician was not a category which staff could be nominated for, but one that the panel was inspired to give on the day of judging based on Jane’s clear dedication and altruism, her passion for outreach, and championing the success of fellow technicians.

All of this shone through in the nominations received across all the categories.

Three career-focused workshops focused on professional registration, aligning career objectives with institutional needs, and opportunities available through the Institute of Skills and Strategy ran in the afternoon. 

We are so grateful to Laurence Dawkins-Hall, Gemma Carter-Morris, Dr Simon Breeden and Declan Axon for coming to us and giving so generously of their time.

There was also one fun creative workshop in the microbiology labs making festive patterns in agar plates using different microbial cultures and agars. One of our lab-based placement students flexed her newly developed teaching skills and delivered the Christmas Cultures session.

This was attended by a wide range of colleagues, several of whom had not been inside a lab since their school days – they had great fun and really enjoyed the meeting of art and science!

Two facility tours provided colleagues with the opportunity to see parts of the institution that they normally don’t get to go in.

Dr Sarah Icely, Deputy Sector Manager  for the Pig Unit provided delegates with a tour or our award-winning pig unit, and Dr Lynn McIntyre, Interim Director of Harper Food Innovation and Senior Lecturer Dr Wilatsana Posri,  showed off our wonderful Food Academy, complete with 3D chocolate printing demo and a mince pie taste-off - delegates were quite spoiled for choice!

The day then rounded off with competition announcements from the suppliers and facilities stands and a glass of fizz.

All in all, it was an amazing day and absolutely worth all the effort. Harper Adams will soon start planning for its 125^th birthday celebration and I’m already starting to think about 2026’s Technicians’ Conference and how we can use this to celebrate 125 years of technical expertise! I would certainly love to hear from anyone who can contribute to celebrating such a legacy.

Please do get in touch if you feel inspired!