Organisation and Structure

Consortium Members

Partner Organisations

Governance is based on three essential principles namely that:

• Techne Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP) member institutions participation means that its institutional members are involved at every level of governance. All Techne member institutions carry equal status and responsibility. 
• Techne DTP is run for the benefit of its students.
• Techne DTP delivers its services demonstrating value-for-money.

The Techne DTP structure is designed to ensure that its strategy, objectives, policy and implementation are carried out in the most effective way possible. Further details are given below.

The Steering Group

Techne DTP members are represented at DVC/PVC level and the Group is chaired on rotation by a senior academic from each member institution.  The Group provides high-level guidance to Techne and monitors its progress against deliverables. 

Chair of the Steering Group is Professor Andrew Linn, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Knowledge Exchange) at the University of Westminster. 

Student Representative 2024/25: Currently vacant

Management & Administrators Group   

Membership of this group comprises a senior academic and administrative lead from each Techne institution, a student representative, the Chair of the Training Group and the Chair of the External Partners’ Forum, Dr Sean Cunningham, who ensures that collaborative arrangements with partners have a high profile in Techne work and, as the external academic member, has particular responsibility in ensuring that any decisions do not adversely impact any groups of students.

The Management & Administrators Group develops policy and process, monitors Techne’s performance against its objectives and oversees the final allocation of awards.

Chair of the Management & Administrators Group: Dr Danielle Sands, Royal Holloway University of London

Student Representatives 2024-25: Kathryn Zacharek, University of Brighton & Max Shirley, University of Westminster.

Training Group

Each Techne institution is represented by two academic representatives and membership often includes the Researcher Development Officers from those institutions in addition to a student representative and partner representatives.  The Group is responsible for planning and commissioning training provision, monitoring the training budget and reviewing all training and development applications.  The work of the Training Group is carried out by four sub-groups:

• Training Processes
• Research Skills
• Personal Development and
• Training for the Future.

The Chair of the Training group is Professor Sara Houston who is based at Roehampton University.

Student Representatives 2024/25: Carmen Saito, Loughborough University (London) & Izzy Barrett-Lally, Royal Holloway, University of London.

External Partners’ Forum

All Techne partners are invited to sit on the External Partners’ Forum, which inputs into Techne policy and strategy through the work of the Chair, who sits on the Management & Administrators Group.  It helps to develop engagement opportunities for Techne students through participation and content delivery in cohort development opportunities such as Congresses.  Techne in turn also looks at ways that it can support its partners. 

Chair of the External Partners’ Forum: Dr Sean Cunningham from The National Archives, and Ben Cole, who is based at Loughborough University London, is the Techne Partner Liaison.

Equality and Diversity Committee (EDI Committee) 

Membership of the EDI Committee is drawn from across the Techne institutions, and  also includes EDI specialists from Royal Holloway and student representatives.  The Committee is responsible for developing and implementing all Techne EDI initiatives and it also monitors Techne EDI data, reporting on this to the Management and Administrators Group.

Co-Chairs of the EDI Committee: Dr Tim Wharton (University of Brighton) and Dr Margherita Sprio (University of Westminster).

Student Representatives 2024/25: Eva Dieteren, Kingston University & Rosalind Holgate-Smith, Kingston University.

^{Credit: Gareth Brookes}