Geraldine Fitzpatrick
Developing People & Culture

Geraldine Fitzpatrick

Geraldine Fitzpatrick, Developing People & Culture

Consulting & Facilitation

“I care deeply about how we can craft better research cultures and supportive policies to enable researchers to bring their best selves to do their great work together.”

Drawing on a diverse background, expertise as a trained facilitator, and my researcher interview and design skills, I offer a range of consulting and facilitation services tailored to your needs.

I bring a solutions-oriented strengths-based perspective to do more of what works well.

I have a particular interest in collegial workplace cultures to promote holistic wellbeing and to enable people to do their great work. This requires a whole systems perspective encompassing supportive policies and services, realistic performance expectations, good leadership and effective individual practices.

Focussing on everyday small actions that can have big impact

[Dutton & Spreitzer 2014 "How to be a Positive Leader: Small Actions, Big Impact"]

From the smart city panel event
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SIGCHI Lifetime Service Award Fireside Chat with awardee Elizabeth Churchill, CHI2023 Hamburg Germany
Geraldine as lifetime service awardee interviewed by Anna Cox, New Orleans, CHI2022
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Examples

Faculty/group retreats

As an external facilitator I can help; Refine your agenda; Prepare for the event; Facilitate interactive and engaging methods to deliver on that agenda.

Faculty/Institutional initiatives - mentoring programs, diversity initiatives

Facilitating discussions and advising on programs to deliver on specific agendas.

Examples

Developing a mentoring programme – workshops, interviews, proposal, University of Queensland, Sept 2019.

Facilitator, online workshop, Bias Training to inform recruitment for EU ITN REMARO, Nov 2020

Workshop for Greek ACM-W, as part of GEC2022: “Becoming better together – learning through mentoring”. Hybrid, 90 mins. To start development of a mentoring programme in Greece Informatics.  June 2022

Project kick-off meetings & team development

Starting a new project or team well is the basis for being able to deliver projects more effectively. 

I can facilitate project kick-off events that help you define the shared values of the team, identify people’s strengths, map roles, and establish the processes and systems for how the team will work together and how they will deal with inevitable challenges that arise.

Examples

Kick-off Team cohesion workshops – 2 half-days – online  – for ACM SIGCHI Executive Committee – November 2021

Change management / culture change workshops

Drawing from the Appreciative Inquiry methods, facilitating strategic change discussions from a values and strengths-based perspective, in the context of external demands, and how to put change into practice.

Culture review - assessing and shaping culture

Applying over 30 years experience with qualitative and mixed-methods research

How well do you really know what is going on in your institution or group? What is working well and not so well? Where the opportunities are to develop as a unit?  

Applying over 30 years experience with qualitative and mixed-methods research, I can conduct in-house research using interviews, observations and surveys, to take the current ‘pulse’ of the culture’. The output is an actionable synthesised report that identifies current culture issues, and provides the basis for discussions about relevant interventions to build more collegial productive sustainable research/workplace cultures.

Policy and Strategy Development

At institutional, national and international levels

How do we develop the supportive and inclusive structures, policies, and strategies which value a diversity of contributions and career paths? How to interpret and apply the principles of international research evaluation reform initiatives?

I can contribute to policy and strategy discussions at institutional, national and international levels about how to put in place supportive policies and strategies and how to practically implement these policies in day to day practices. 

Examples

BMBWF Austrian Federal Ministry of Education Science and Research 

BMBWF Workshop ‘Was Wissen schafft’May 2023

Values in evaluating science – what values, whose values, what is important?

BMBWF Internal Information Event – January 2023 

‘Evaluation and Diversity: Enabling Academics to Craft their Impactful Career Path’ 

Member of the TU Wien ‘Code Of Conduct’ Working Group 2022-2023, and the Research Ethics Committee 2019-2023

Advisory Board / Evaluation Panels

Contributing international experience on Faculty and Project Advisory Boards and Faculty Evaluation Panels.

Examples

For institutions and projects in Australia, Cyprus, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, UK – list on request

Panel facilitation

I can facilitate interactive panel discussions on a range of topics.

Examples

Moderator and designer: CHI2018 Panel on ‘Daring to change: creating a slower more sustainable academic life’ – May – 2018

Smart Cities – Panel Discussion: On ‘Transforming Cities’Vienna – 2016

Fireside chats

I can conduct one-one in-depth interviews that feel intimate and which draw out new insights.

Examples

Podcast host for Changing Academic Life podcast series. Conversations with academics, researchers, and thought leaders –  since 2016

SIGCHI Lifetime Service Award Fireside Chatwith awardee Elizabeth Churchill – CHI2023 – Hamburg, Germany