Academic Leadership Online Course
Informatics Europe provides a unique development opportunity for academic leaders at all levels of experience in Informatics and related disciplines. Following the success of previous cohorts, the sole leadership course will be offered again online in the upcoming spring
by computer scientists, for computer scientists, and with computer scientists!
Online Academic Leadership Development Course:
Empowering Academic Leaders in Informatics & Related Disciplines
All academics are or will become leaders, but how do you lead clever and independent-minded academics? How do you bring out the best in people as a leader? How do you have those difficult conversations? How do you and your colleagues not just survive but thrive? How do you ‘do’ academic leadership?
In this course, you will have the opportunity to explore these issues together with Prof. Geraldine Fitzpatrick and Prof. Austen Rainer, who are both senior Informatics/Computing academics with strong leadership backgrounds and experience and who complement that experience with scientific evidence-based approaches to positive leadership practice.
Through four 3.5-hour online workshop sessions, including breaks, complemented by a self-paced orientation session, pre-work and in-between work (own time engaging with video/audio content, worksheets, and readings), you will have a facilitated learning experience to help you:
- Situate your leadership:
- Appreciate the unique opportunities and challenges of academic leadership;
- Locate your academic leadership within its wider context and identify the leadership approach you want to bring to it;
- Lead yourself:
- Evaluate your own values and strengths to provide the foundation for a positive strengths-based approach to your leadership;
- Identify and practice simple techniques to survive and thrive as an academic leader;
- Lead others:
- Appreciate what makes academics tick and how to bring out the best in people;
- Identify and practice simple techniques for building collegial cultures;
- Further your own development:
- Identify how to integrate evidence-based recommendations with reflection on your and others’ experience with individual, pair, and small-group activities;
- Develop a plan of action for growing as an academic leader.
Dates & Agenda
- 18.04.25 Pre-work (own time)
- Orientation and pre-work for Session 1
- Includes short video/slides course introduction, online questionnaire, and pre-session 1 worksheet all to be completed at your own pace
- 02.05.25 Session 1:
- Introductions of people;
- Leading Informatics in academia;
- Knowing ourselves and others
- In-between work and optional peer support
- 09.05.25 Session 2:
- Knowing ourselves and others (continued);
- Leading ourselves
- Leading others - building collegial environments
- In-between work and optional peer support
- 16.05.24 Session 3:
- Leading others - having effective conversations;
- Leading others - having difficult conversations
- In-between work and optional peer support
- 23.05.24 Session 4:
- Participant topics
- Connecting leaders & where next
In addition to the Zoom sessions noted above, participants will need to block specific time in their calendar for the critical pre-course and in-between session work. The suggestion is to gift yourself approximately 2 hours/week where feasible. The Zoom sessions will be facilitated on the assumption of familiarity with the pre-work.
Target Audience
This course is intended to develop leaders in Informatics and related disciplines, and to engage leaders across the spectrum of academic leadership roles, both formal and informal. This ranges from senior leaders, to middle-career academics as well as to new and emerging leaders. Indicative examples are people already in formal leadership positions, as well as (assistant) professors, project leaders, group leaders, and theme leaders, who want to reflect on their leadership practice and seek to improve it; it may also suit early career academics who are starting to take on some other academic leadership service or mentoring roles, recognizing that all academics are or will become leaders in some way.
Format
The course takes a blended learning approach. In addition to the preparation before the course, the course will require at least a 5.5-hour commitment every week during the four weeks of the course. This commitment consists of 2 hours in-between work and the 3.5 hours participating in the Friday morning Zoom sessions.
There will be opportunities for reflection through individual conversation, small-group activity, larger group discussion, peer support, and pre- and post-session activities.
Zoom sessions provide the opportunity to share experiences, workshop the content together, and explore how to practically apply the content in your context.
You will need a device with video and audio, the Zoom app installed, headphones, and internet access. If we use additional applications, you may need your own free account for these. These sessions are deliberately not recorded to respect the confidentiality of participants.
Because you are gifting yourself the time and space to attend this course, and your time is important, we strongly encourage you to make a firm commitment to actively participate in the course, i.e., attending all sessions and engaging in the critical in-between work activities. These are important for building a trusted peer cohort and for time to engage, do, reflect, learn and grow.
In-between work and peer support
The in-between work is an essential component of the course. We encourage you to allow at least 2 hours for this and to block time in your calendar.
Preparation work before each workshop session provides the core content to be discussed at the next session and will involve some form of the following as relevant to the topic:
- Short videos/audio/slides explaining the topic, walking through the scientific evidence and also providing illustrative personal anecdotes as relevant;
- Self-reflection via worksheets and exercises (which may also include some post-work from the previous session);
- Optional readings if you want to go to the source scientific papers or want more in-depth information.
The course also encourages the emergence of a peer-support network in which attendees from the course can support each other in their post-course academic leadership and career progression.
Intended Outcomes
Takeaways from this course include:
- A clearer sense of your own leadership identity and style;
- Strategies for self-care, self-management, life hacks, cognitive hacks, work-life integration, being a good role model;
- An understanding of what makes people tick;
- Strategies for identifying and developing people’s strengths and building a collegial culture;
- Strategies for communicating powerfully through good attention, questions, listening, and dealing with challenging conversations;
- An action plan for what to do next;
- Opportunities to continue to engage with participants upon completion of the course.
Participants will receive an Informatics Europe Certificate recognizing their participation and engagement with the course (attendance at least 3 of the 4 online sessions required for a certificate to be issued).
There are also opportunities to continue the discussion with the facilitators and participants after the course has been completed so as to support participants in their continued leadership development.
Registration
Registration opens now. Click here to register.
Early Bird Registration Fee (until 2 March 2025):
EUR 1,050 - Informatics Europe members
EUR 1,450 - Non-members
Regular Registration Fee (from 3 March 2025):
EUR 1,200 - Informatics Europe members
EUR 1,600 - Non-members
Registration Deadline: 6 April 2025
(Applications received after the deadline will be pending, with final status confirmed via email.)
100% of the course* fee must be paid** within 14 days from the invoice date. Otherwise, we reserve the right to cancel your registration.
* The course will take place provided that the minimum number of participants is reached. In case not, you will be informed of the course cancellation.
** The amount of the bank transfer should include any bank fee related to the transfer and/or processing.