Staff Profile

CDT Manager (Digital Civics)

I manage digital research and social innovation programmes at Open Lab, a world-leading research group in interaction design and ubiquitous computing at Newcastle University's School of Computing.

I'm responsible for the strategic management and operational delivery of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Digital Civics. I work closely with the academic directors and I'm responsible for the administration and communications for the CDT, as well as organising training events and activities. Alongside my work on the CDT, I have provided management support to Newcastle University and Northumbria University's EPSRC Digital Economy Research Centre (2015 - 2021) and EPSRC Centre for Digital Citizens (2020 - 2025) during my time working with Open Lab. I also acted as a member of the core bidding team for the EPSRC NortHFutures Digital Health Hub.

These programmes are training and supporting researchers to explore how emerging digital technologies can promote civic engagement, and I work closely with Open Lab's industry and community partners and stakeholders.

Strategic Cultural Partnerships Manager

I also manage and support strategic University partnerships in the cultural and creative industries. As a member of the University's Business Development and Enterprise team, I am working closely with Dean of Culture and Creative Arts to scope current cultural partnership activity and identify potential areas for strategic development.

As part of this role, I primarily manage institutional relationships with a portfolio of cultural partners. I also work on strategic cultural projects, and with key policy and funding partners around the creative industries.

Follow my work on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Training and development

• MSc in Strategic Leadership and Level 7 Senior Leader Degree Apprenticeship Newcastle University Business School, 2020 - 2023

Memberships

• Fellow (FHEA) Advance HE
• Chartered member (MCLIP) CILIP: The Library and Information Association
• Chartered member (CMgr MCMI) Chartered Management Institute

Professional associations

• Director and Trustee Mortal Fools
• Co-founder Women in Tech North East

Awards

• Hachette Children's Novel Award winner, 2023
• Tech Women 100 Individual winner, 2020

• Articles

  • Pattinson RL. Project review: Museum partnerships, virtual reality and The Catherine Storr Experience. Museological Review 2017, (21), 53-57.
  • Pattinson RL. A partnership approach to children's literature collections. Information Professional 2017, (November 2017), 48-51.
  • Smith RL. Reinventing OCR for early printed books. CILIP Update 2015, (February 2015), 40 - 41.
  • Smith RL. Libraries and word of mouth marketing. CILIP Update 2011, (August), 40-42.

• Conference Proceedings (inc. Abstract)

  • Schofield T, Trujillo Pisanty D, Arrigoni G, Reynolds K, Pattinson R. Magical Realism and Augmented Reality: Designing Apps with Children in a Cultural Institution. In: Proceedings of the 2019 Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS '19). 2019, San Diego, CA, USA: ACM.

• Online Publications

  • Pattinson RL. How can we support women working in academic computing roles?. London: Computing, 2021. Available at: https://www.computing.co.uk/opinion/4029707/support-women-academic-computing-roles.
  • Pattinson RL. Connecting citizens with policy through technology. London: Computing, 2021. Available at: https://www.computing.co.uk/sponsored/4028833/connecting-citizens-policy-technology.