Kelly Vere

Director of Technical Skills and Strategy at the University of Nottingham and HE & Technician Commitment Lead at the Science Council.

Kelly Vere is the Director of Technical Skills & Strategy at the University of Nottingham where she began her career as a junior medical technician in 1999. She now leads an award-winning programme to enable the strategic and professional development of the University’s 700+ technical staff across the UK and Asia. Kelly has written for the Guardian, Times Higher Education and Nature on the role of university technicians. She has given a number of invited talks in this area, both nationally and internationally, and featured in the Department of Work and Pensions’ #NotJustForBoys campaign, encouraging girls to explore technical careers in STEM.

Kelly is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a Registered Scientist (RSci). Kelly works closely with Midlands Innovation and in 2015, founded the UK Higher Education Technician Summit (HETS), a biennial, national conference focused on the professional development of technicians which attracted over 700 delegates in 2019. Alongside her role at Nottingham, Kelly is on secondment with the Science Council where she leads on engagement with the higher education sector to increase visibility and recognition of technicians.

She founded and leads the Technician Commitment – a sector wide initiative to ensure visibility, recognition, career development and sustainability for the technical community across higher education and research which currently stands at 92 institutional signatories. In February 2020 it was announced that she would lead a new £5M programme ‘TALENT’, awarded to the Midlands Innovation universities to advance status and opportunity for the technical community.

Kelly is a member of the judging panel for the Times Higher Education Awards and featured in the University of Nottingham’s 2018 exhibition “Women at Nottingham: Pressing for Progress” as one of 14 female role models.