After an extensive career as a human resource management (HRM) professional, Paul Joseph-Richard started his full-time academic career in 2015. As a Chartered Psychologist of the British Psychological Society, Paul is committed to transforming pedagogic practice and the student experience through his unique approach to personalised inclusion.
In his approach, Paul builds meaningful connections with students with hidden disabilities, develops their employability skills and empowers them to be economically active and disability proud. He develops key partnerships with employers, mental health charities and community networks in Northern Ireland that are critical for students to secure placements and jobs.
Through his HRM teaching, he trains current and future HRM professionals to develop an inclusive mindset; he helps them learn to de-bias their people management practices and inspires them to create inclusive workplaces. By creating new bridges between employers and students, Paul helps all students, in particular those with hidden disabilities, get work-placements and jobs faster, like others without disabilities. For him, ‘learning’ is a relational outcome and ‘employment’ is an interpersonal outcome. Paul is an Advance HE Senior Fellow, a Chartered Member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (MCIPD) and a Certified Management and Business Educator (CMBE).
Paul specialises in psychometrics, executive coaching and leadership development in individuals and teams. He has won Ulster University’s Civic Contribution through Educational Outreach Award (2019), Professional Practice Innovation Award (2020), Distinguished Collaborative Education Excellence Fellowship (2022) and the British Academy of Management’s Early Career Education Practice Award (2020).
Paul’s transformative work has led to published research on aspects of research-teaching integration, learning analytics for student support and inclusion, leadership development, doctoral students’ wellbeing, and embedding employability in curricula. Paul is committed to reducing the disability employment gap in Northern Ireland and creates strategies for making organisations more inclusive across the globe.
