Health and safety is of utmost importance across higher education and research. Universities and research institutes are dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge and innovation, often involving complex experiments, hazardous materials, and advanced technologies.
MI TALENT has published a new national report that reveals unprecedented insights into how technical staff in higher education and research support critical health and safety activities in September 2023.
It evidences that skilled, specialised technical professionals are vital to the safe running of institutions and publishes ten recommendations for employers, technicians and professional bodies to ensure the technical workforce is supported to maintain safe research and teaching spaces.
This report was informed by a survey of technical staff, academics, professional services staff, senior leaders, and undergraduate and postgraduate students working and/ or studying in higher education or research institutes in the UK alongside interviews with technical staff with a role in health and safety.
The TALENT Health and Safety Survey was open from mid-December 2022 to the beginning of February 2023. It was hosted online by Shift Insight Ltd using Snap Surveys. The survey consisted of 33 questions and took approximately 12 minutes to complete.
The survey was open to technical staff, non- technical staff and students working and/or studying in UK higher education and research. Questions covered topics from activities and levels of responsibility in health and safety through to experiences within higher education and research environments. Different routing options were used depending on the respondent’s role and involvement in health and safety.
A total of 2,188 responses were received to the survey, including partial responses. Following data cleaning, there was a final usable sample of 1,448. Data cleaning included removal of poor-quality responses, as well as those with incomplete data, to ensure a full dataset could be used. No weighting was added to the survey to avoid skewing data. The sample is therefore self-selecting.
Level of Education: Higher education
Lead Organisation: MITALENT
