Professor Fiona Patterson

Professor Fiona Patterson (BSc, MSc, PhD, CPsychol, AcSS, FRSA)

Visiting Professor and Social Sciences Lead for the Interdisciplinary Centre for Creativity in Professional Practice (The Psychology of Creativity and Innovation)

Department of Psychology

Email: f.patterson@city.ac.uk
Telephone: 07931-229344 or PA 07847-600630

Overview

Professor Fiona Patterson is a leading expert in the field of assessment, high stakes selection, innovation and change in organisations. She has over 20 years experience of working at a strategic level with a variety of FTSE 100 companies and public sector organisations.

Prior to her posts in academe, she was Head of Organisational Psychology at The Boots Corporation Plc an internal consultant psychologist at Ford Motor Company Limited (Global). These posts led to an interest in research in assessment and she was sponsored by Ford to conduct a PhD in this area at the University of Nottingham. In 1998, Fiona took a lectureship at the University of Nottingham to pursue her research interests. Following this she was promoted to a post at the Institute of Work Psychology, University of Sheffield where she led a research team and was Director for post-graduate programmes.

She was appointed Professor of Organisational Psychology at City University in 2003 where she established the Organisational Psychology Group, a teaching and research unit, and became Director of Research for the School of Social Sciences. In 2010, she was appointed Principal Researcher in the Social and Developmental Psychology Department at the University of Cambridge. She was invited to remain a Visiting Professor at City, acting as the Social Sciences lead for the Interdisciplinary Centre for Creativity in Professional Practice, comprising 7 Schools across the University.

Professor Patterson is Director and founder for the Work Psychology Group Ltd consulting practice, providing research-led advice to public, private and voluntary sector organisations internationally. Fiona publishes widely in assessment, especially in relation to selection, innovation and change in organisations. Over the past 10 years, her research has had a major impact upon governmental and corporate policy in the UK and abroad.

Selected esteem markers

Advisory roles

General

Research interests and funding

Professor Patterson's research in selection and assessment in medical education and training has had a major impact on UK and international policy. Her initial research in one locality (Trent region, whilst at the University of Nottingham) focusing on GP selection became the start of a long-term research programme. The impact of her research has been fundamental in changing the way in which doctors are selected and assessed internationally, in partnership with senior figures in the medical community.

Her programme of research uniquely involves the development of theoretical models of important non-cognitive skills required of doctors (such as empathy, communication and integrity) and the related design, implementation and validation of assessment methodologies.

Through her research team Professor Patterson's activities have provided evidence for the introduction of innovative methodologies in medical selection such as situational judgement tests (SJT) and selection centres. These methods are now being adopted by all medical Royal Colleges in the UK (via the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges see Irish et all, 2011, British Medical Journal. Her research is being adopted internationally (e.g. Royal College of Surgeons, Australasia; Australian GP Education & Training, Netherlands, Denmark etc).

Example research activities and publications include:

Through her research interests in personality and individual differences, a second stream of research is exploring employee creativity and innovation in organisations. Professor Patterson's research has led to the development of a model of individual level innovation. This model was further developed and has since been published as a psychometric profiling instrument to examine employee innovation potential.

The tool is used internationally as a selection and development tool and was nominated for a millennium 'Best of British' Design Council award.  In 2009, Professor Patterson was awarded a grant by NESTA (National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts) to explore the characteristics and behaviours of innovative individuals in organisations. The research grant awarded by NESTA for work on innovation in organisations was the first time NESTA have given an award to a social scientist in this area.

Professor Patterson was appointed Academic Adviser to the UK government in 2000 advising on innovation in organisations. She has supervised several PhDs in the area of innovation, notably Dr Rebecca Port (2005), Manager characteristics that influence innovation; University of Sheffield and Dr Wissam Magadley (2006); Evaluation of creativity retreat centres; University of Sheffield.

Professor Patterson's research funding has come from a wide variety of sources, indicating her ability to collaborate with organisations and research councils (including the ESRC, EPSRC). Examples include the Department of Health, Royal College of Surgeons, Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, BUPA, NESTA, BERR, Ford of Europe, Coors Plc, Shell Plc, Royal Bank of Scotland, Home Office, Saint Gobain, National Police Improvement Agency, NHS Education Scotland and Scottish Government. She has a reputation for delivering quality research with high impact dissemination activities.

Selected publications

Affiliations