Credit where it is (over)due

Time to take immense pride in the many roles technicians have played in science. Hannah Kowszun takes us through a brief history of technicians and offers us up a well-deserved whoop and a proud fist-pump.

Do you remember that scene in the film Juno, when Allison Janney lays into the ultrasound technician conducting Ellen Page’s sonogram? “I’m a nail technician and I think we both ought to just stick to what we know…Oh, you think you’re so special because you get to play Picture Pages up there? Well, my five year old daughter could do that and let me tell you, she’s not the brightest bulb in the tanning bed. So why don’t you go back to night school in Mantino and learn a real trade.”

While it’s one in the eye for the judgemental ultrasound technician, it’s not a particularly proud moment for technicians as a group. Compare this with the scene in the film The Mummy when a tipsy Rachel Weisz declares with great passion and pride, “I’m a librarian!” I was watching in a crowded cinema with my family. My Mum, herself a librarian, whooped with great pleasure. Along with someone else several rows in front, who even went so far as holding their fist aloft in pride. There isn’t a lot of fist-waving pride for technicians in mainstream media.

The first professional technicians were probably those in Ancient Egypt who helped with the process of mummification. “The chief embalmer was aided by…lower ranking weyt or embalmer technicians” (Religion and Ritual in Ancient Egypt, 2011). “Lower ranking” seems to be a common theme when you start exploring the place of technicians in human history, and it’s still prevalent today. When I started working for the Science Council, I was told that an eminent scientist had once asked if by science technician we meant “the person who cleans my test tubes?” Unfortunately for science technicians the answer is yes, but with the caveat of and so much more!

There is a wonderful essay by Steven Shapin called The Invisible Technician, published in 1989, which explores how technicians were perceived in the seventeenth century and centuries following. Shapin’s essay focusses on the laboratory of Robert Boyle in 1675, inviting us to explore its layout and meet his support personnel, from “amenuenses” and “artificers”, to “operators” and “laborants”. What a fantastic array of descriptors; it seems a shame that we are left with only the term “technician”. According to Shapin, “Historians of science have shown little inclination to study the roles of technicians or other support personnel involved in making and recording scientific knowledge.” While this is in part to do with the difficulty of finding reliable evidence, it may also be due to the inherent complexity of scientific discovery. It is easier to hail the lead scientist as the sole force behind invention.

The best analogy is perhaps that of the Oscars. While the awards are given to anywhere from one person (Best Actor) to a small mob (Best Visual Effects), the credits that roll at the end of the film itself can go on for as long as 10 minutes. All these people played a part in the film’s success, but only a select few receive the accolades. So why would anyone want to become a technician? According to research by engineering UK there are 50,000 technicians retiring each year, which will leave us with a potential shortfall, according to the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, of 700,000 technicians in the next decade. This is one of the drivers for their new Technicians Make it Happen campaign, which is trying to raise the profile of technician careers. I wonder if there isn’t a kind of class system at play here, revolving around academic achievement rather than money or lineage.

Our school system rewards people who are able to put pen to paper, to the detriment of those who love being more practical. A science or engineering career starts with a degree, or a masters or a PhD. If you’re scientific, but not academic, your career has ended before it had a chance to begin. After all, how many Fellows of the Royal Society took a less traditional route through a science career? How many consider themselves technicians? At the Science Council we recognise technicians as professional scientists, as a fundamental part of the science workforce. In 2012 we launched two registers, Registered Science Technician and Registered Scientist, which completed a framework for professional competence, leading to Chartered Scientist. We have technicians on all three registers, from lab technicians to lab managers to technical directors, who have all demonstrated their competence in the application of scientific knowledge and understanding that is equivalent to their peers, PhDs and all.

My hope is that these initiatives and others, including Laboratory News’ campaign, will help change attitudes towards technicians, recognising the inherent knowledge and skill involved in doing a technical job well. Hashtag proud to be a technician: surely that deserves a whoop and a fist-wave?

Author: Hannah Kowszun is Director of Marketing and Communications at the Science Council, who license professional bodies in science to award professional registration status for scientists and technicians, including Registered Science Technician (RSciTech).