Desmond Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald was appointed as President of UL in 2016 and took up his appointment in 2017. On 26 May 2020, he announced his intention to step down as President. In a statement, UL confirmed that Dr Fitzgerald will end his term later this year and that the Governing Authority of the University will shortly begin an international recruitment process to select a replacement. Dr. Fitzgerald said he had taken the decision to resign in the context of Covid-19.

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’.

After 2013, Fitzgerald was appointed Principal of the College of Health Sciences, Vice-President for Health Affairs at UCD, and Chief Academic Officer of the Ireland East Hospital Group to drive the development of health sciences at UCD and their integration with the affiliated hospitals. The initiative is central to the development of the emerging Academic Health Sciences Centre, a partnership between UCD and 11 hospitals, including two major teaching hospitals, the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital and St. Vincent's University Hospital.

Phase I opened in September 2011, with Phase II completed in September 2013, and as of October 2016, Phase III is 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 realized with an €80m national data analytics centre award to UCD and its partners in 2013.

Other facilities include the Centre for Nanomedicine, which is developing technologies for stem cell therapy, drug delivery and human imaging. Strong links have been forged in nutrition between the biomedical programme and food science through the UCD Institute of Food and Health, which opened in 2011. Several programs were initiated to develop novel technologies for healthcare. These include Technology Research for Independent Living, a unique partnership with Intel and GE Healthcare that is developing health technologies for deployment in the home and the Enterprise Ireland-funded centre, Applied Research for Connected Health.

Fitzgerald also developed the Knowledge Centre within the new UCD Science District to foster innovation and entrepreneurship. The Knowledge Centre is home to the Innovation Academy, which was established in 2011 to provide a unique programme in innovation and entrepreneurship to PhD students, and was extended to the Irish government's Springboard initiative.

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%.

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.

During his tenure at UCD, Fitzgerald has played a central role in the development of biomedical and health research, and building links to the hospital campuses. Central to these efforts has been the UCD Conway Institute for Biomolecular and Biomedical Research, opened in 2002, a 13,000 sq m facility that is home to 400+ biomedical researchers. Several state-of-the-art technology platforms have been developed in the Institute to support the biomedical community, including comprehensive proteomics facilities, gene sequencing and bioinformatics. 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.

Fitzgerald has also worked on the Boards of medical charities and national agencies. As Chairman of the health-funding agency, the Health Research Board, his key achievement was securing €50m exchequer funding for national clinical research centers attached to medical schools. To date, three clinical research centres have been completed, in addition to the centre at RCSI, which he developed in 2002.

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

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.

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, Desmond completed a Fellowship in the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin. 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.

Fitzgerald attended Oatlands College, Stillorgan, Co. 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. He was awarded an MD from the National University of Ireland in 1994.

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

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