Recognising the contributions of Research Technical Professionals at the University of Sheffield

This presentation describes work to assess the utility of adopting the Contributor Role Taxonomy (CRediT) for recognising the contributions of Research Technical Professionals to research at the University of Sheffield, with the twin goals of 1) increasing the recognition, attribution, and professionalisation of research-enabling staff (including technicians, data stewards, and librarians), and 2) increasing the open publication of ‘non-traditional’ research outputs such as workflows, code, data, and other research artefacts. The presentation describes how the foundations for increased uptake of CRediT at Sheffield were laid by developing new webpage guidance for researchers, before describing the activities and findings of a co-production workshop with Technicians to generate ‘real life’ examples of technical contributions to research to supplement the new guidance. The workshop also tested whether and how Technical contributions to research could - or could not - be mapped to the 14 Contributor Roles, ultimately generating potential new taxa for a revised CRediT standard: hardware; training and mentoring; regulatory and ethical compliance; specialist techniques; and knowledge exchange and transfer. The workshop was designed and facilitated by Josh Brown from MoreBrains Cooperative Ltd. This work was made possible by Research England Enhancing Research Culture funding.