Desmond Fitzgerald

Desmond Fitzgerald (born 30 October 1953) is an Irish medical doctor and academic leader.

Fitzgerald was born on 30 October 1953 to Maureen O’Donovan from Limerick and Thomas Joseph Fitzgerald from Belfast.

Fitzgerald attended Oatlands College, Stillorgan, Dublin.

He studied medicine at University College Dublin (UCD), National University of Ireland and graduated with a MB, BAO, BCH (Honours), in 1977, and a Diploma in Mathematical Statistics from Trinity College Dublin in 1982.

In 1983, he moved to Vanderbilt University in Nashville in the US to train in clinical pharmacology and cardiology.

He remained in the US to head a large coronary care facility and a research programme into the causes of cardiovascular disease.

In 1991, Fitzgerald returned to University College Dublin and shortly after this he established a research laboratory and held attending physician positions at several Dublin hospitals.

He was awarded an MD from the National University of Ireland in 1994.

Following his graduation from medical school at UCD and medical residency in the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital, the Charitable Infirmary Jervis Street Hospital and the Richmond Hospital in Dublin, Fitzgerald completed a Fellowship in the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin.

In 1994, he was appointed Professor and Head of Department of Clinical Pharmacology at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.

Over the next 10 years, he built a research programme that bridged basic research and the clinical sciences.

These included the RCSI Clinical Research Centre; the Institute for Biopharmaceutical Sciences; SurGen, a pharmacogenomics company; the RCSI Centre for Human Proteomics; Java Clinical Research, a spin-out CRO; the RCSI biobanking facility; and a bioinformatics programme that in partnership with Siemens designed the innovative ‘proteomics pipeline’.

He led the development of the College's translational medicine research programme, which culminated in the Programme for Human Genomics, a €42m research partnership between the three medical schools in Dublin that has since grown into the national programme for translational medicine (Molecular Medicine Ireland).

From 2002, he was appointed as Director of Research and a member of the senior management team at RCSI.

The Institute opened in 2002, then a 13000 m2 facility that was home to 400+ biomedical researchers.

Several state-of-the-art technology platforms were developed in the Institute to support the biomedical research community, including comprehensive proteomics facilities, gene sequencing and bioinformatics.

In 2004, Fitzgerald was appointed Vice President for Research and Professor of Molecular Medicine in UCD.

Fitzgerald developed the research strategy and oversaw its implementation through a new organisation, UCD Research.

In five years, the university soared in global rankings to enter the top 100, trebled its research funding and increased its rate of academic publication by 250%.

Central to the research strategy in UCD was the development of a series of multi-disciplinary programmes with a strong translational focus.

These have included six research institutes spanning humanities, social sciences, engineering, science and business; two Centres for Science Engineering and Technology; and seven Strategic Research Clusters.

He developed a series of programmes in the humanities targeting major societal challenges in areas that included education and child development.

Fitzgerald established 7 structured PhD programmes and a Researcher Career Framework and led the strategic recruitment of a large group of academics (the Stokes Lectureships and Professorships).

Fitzgerald was criticised for his high salary on joining UCD from RCSI.

UCD consistently defended the salary on the basis that he achieved a major turnaround in research funding, amounting to €1bn during his time in the role.

Fitzgerald led the development of the UCD Science Centre, a €300m development that was funded through philanthropy and successive bids to the national investment fund in higher education, the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions.

Based on these capabilities, the Institute was well positioned in 2009 to establish the €20m national programme in Systems Biology funded by Science Foundation Ireland.

Allied to the UCD Conway Institute were facilities for translational medicine, with the core goal of improving patient care.

Phase I opened in September 2011, with Phase II completed in September 2013, and as of October 2016, Phase III was in the planning stage.

From the outset, it was envisaged that computational science and informatics would be central to the development.

This ambition has been realised with an €80m national data analytics centre award to UCD and its partners in 2013.

The UCD Science District included several major programmes, including The Earth Institute and INSIGHT, the national data analytics programme.

It was also home to Ireland's largest and most comprehensive campus for education and research in the Health Sciences, spanning biomedical research, population science and health services research.

Fitzgerald also developed a science outreach programme, including the UCD Imagine Science Film Festival and Science Expression.

During his tenure at UCD, Fitzgerald played a central role in the development of biomedical and health research, and building links to the hospital campuses.

Central to these efforts was the UCD Conway Institute for Biomolecular and Biomedical Research.

Prior to this, Fitzgerald held the positions of Vice President for Health Affairs with University College Dublin and Chief Academic Officer at Ireland East Hospital Group from 2015 to 2016.

On 6 October 2016, Fitzgerald was announced as the President-elect of the University of Limerick.

He took up this role in early 2017, becoming the fifth President.

He resigned in May 2020 for "personal health concerns" citing the COVID-19 pandemic.