About the Event
In July 2025, Dr Samantha Pearman-Kanza and Dr Louise Saul attended the STEP-UP RSLondon Conference 2025, a whole day in-person event on the 7th July 2025, at The Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 1 Birdcage Walk, London.
Event Programme
The STEP-UP conference was a London and Southeast England event to develop support for digital Research Technical Professionals (dRTPs), with a focus on supporting regional progression of these roles. Recognising the diverse skillsets increasingly required by dRTPs, this event hosted parallel tracks for talks on research data, research infrastructure, and research software.
Event Audience
This event was a regional conference, with the primary aim of developing a platform for dRTPs, researchers, academics, and individuals who are interested in supporting dRTPs in the Southeast of England and London. However, participants from across the UK and farther afield were strongly encouraged to attend, to support knowledge exchange across the research landscape.
Event Organiser
The event was organised by Strategic TEchnical Platform for University technical Professionals (STEP-UP) STEP-UP is a UK-based research project funded under the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)’s 2023 Strategic Technical Platforms call. The project is building a regional network to support the development and recognition of digital Research Technical Professionals (dRTPs). Led by Imperial College London, the project core team includes partners UCL, King’s College London and University of Westminster.
Outputs
In the sessions aimed at supporting research data, Dr Samantha Pearman-Kanza, the Principal Investigator of CaSDaR, presented an overview of the CaSDaR initiative and how CaSDaR plans to support the burgeoning requirement for Data Stewards/hip in the dRTP community and the role of Data Stewards as dRTPs. Samantha serves on the advisory board for the STEP-UP project, whose objectives closely align with those of CaSDaR. We therefore aim to strengthen our collaboration moving forward, fostering the exchange of ideas and expertise between the two initiatives. Samantha’s slides can be found here: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15835908