The current landscape of training for dRTPs

How do we build a coordinated, sustainable training ecosystem for dRTPs? In November 2025, STEP-UP brought together dRTPs and training providers to discuss current challenges and start to develop a community vision for a solution. Read a summary of discussions and find out how you can get involved.

Building a comprehensive and coordinated training landscape for dRTPs

On 27 November 2025, STEP-UP convened 35 experts from research organisations, training providers, and funders to tackle a difficult challenge: how do we build a coordinated, sustainable training ecosystem for digital Research Technical Professionals (dRTPs)?

This matters because research software engineers, research data professionals and computing infrastructure professionals are at the heart of delivering cutting-edge, reproducible, and efficient research. An ideal training landscape for these specialists will need to be comprehensive, FAIR and sustainable, which will require coordination between a large number of organisations.

The current training landscape is fragmented but rich

A quick poll of participants revealed the sheer scale of existing resources:

• At least 23 competency frameworks spanning profession-specific, discipline-specific, and industry-focused models.
• At least 33 training providers and platforms, including national centres, international infrastructures, community programmes, commercial platforms, and universities.

This diversity is a strength and also a challenge: how do we coordinate so that there is minimal duplication of effort, and also coordinate to ensure training covers all the relevant (and emerging) skills?

Key challenges

Participants highlighted several systemic issues:

• Discoverability: Training is scattered across multiple providers, making it hard to find and compare. A single catalogue or reference point could transform accessibility.
• Uncoordinated investments: Funders such as UKRI, the EU, and the NHS operate independently, leading to duplication and gaps. Greater coordination or co-funding would improve efficiency.
• Maintenance gaps: Community-generated training often lacks sustainable funding for updates. Updating is harder than creating, yet rarely rewarded. Communities of practice help but require financial support and recognition.
• Institutional variability: Demand and access differ across institutions due to differences in technology stacks, risk appetites, and job families. Access differs for centrally funded versus grant-funded staff. Cultural barriers exist for those outside traditional postdoc routes/roles.
• Format limitations: Some skills (such as leadership, adaptability, and research context awareness) require mentoring and experience, not just courses. Diverse learning styles demand multiple formats.

A community vision for training

The group identified a series of characteristics for an ideal training landscape, aligned with FAIR principles:

• Findable: A community-maintained catalogue with machine-readable metadata, searchable by skill and outcome.
• Accessible: Parity of access across contract types, multiple formats for diverse learning styles, and attention to inclusivity.
• Interoperable: Alignment between competency frameworks, industry standards, and metadata systems; platforms to signpost and share training.
• Reusable: Collaborative maintenance models and funding for updates.

Other ideas included: embedded trainers within dRTP teamsz, and recognition for those maintaining shared resources.

Next steps: turning vision into action

Immediate actions agreed upon:

• Follow-up Meeting: We will work towards a workshop within 6–12 months to co-design a five-year roadmap.
• Pilot Catalogue: We will pilot a “single point of truth” database of training content, providers, and frameworks searchable by profession, skill, and competency alignment.

This initiativeby STEP-UP complements ongoing work by UKRI-funded DRI projects, including CHARTED, SCALE-UP, and DisCouRSE NetworkPlus. Together, we aim to create a training ecosystem that empowers dRTPs and strengthens the UK’s research infrastructure.

Get involved

Find out about follow up work by joining our mailing list and following us on LinkedIn or Bluesky. And feel free to get in touch if you have questions, suggestions or ideas.