In July 2021 CIB was in Conversation with Dr Paul Chan, Professor of Design and Construction Management at TU Delft in the Netherlands and Editor-in-Chief of leading CIB-Recognised journal Construction Management and Economics. Paul was ‘born’ into the industry and started on the tools. After undertaking a PhD on construction labour productivity he worked on how people cope with organisational, social and technological change, and has completed a number of funded research projects in the areas of sustainability transitions, business model change towards servitisation, and on social value and social sustainability.
Paul’s reflections on his early research career included the stimulating environment of joining a research group after the relative isolation of a PhD, the complexity of stakeholders in the industry, and the value of presenting at CIB conferences and getting to meet colleagues from across the world. His advice for early career researchers was to go to conferences not just to present but to network and to figure out how others think, and for policy makers his top opportunity related to the pandemic, to throw out all prior assumptions when thinking about major challenges as a basis for new and better solutions.
Paul’s ‘Meet the Editor’ webinar for CIB members from May 2021 is also available to view here
