Margot Weijnen

Margot Weijnen
TU Delft

Title: "Coevolution of infrastructure systems and values"

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Abstract

Despite their capital intensity and physical rigidity, infrastructure systems have shown remarkable versatility in accommodating societal change. They pose prime examples of evolving socio-technical systems, continuously adapting to changing economic conditions, technological innovations, changing user needs and societal preferences. The fundamental role of infrastructure as the fabric of our changing society is a blind spot in infrastructure policy and governance. Specifically, more awareness is needed of the values embedded in technological and institutional design choices, as will be illustrated for historic and future infrastructure development challenges.

Biography

Margot Weijnen holds the chair of process and energy systems engineering at the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology, since 1994. She is the founding and scientific director of the Next Generation Infrastructures knowledge platform (since 2001). She served the European Commission and the Dutch government in many advisory capacities in the field of energy and climate policy and technology and innovation policy, amongst others as a member of the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy. She holds an MSc and PhD degree in chemical technology from Delft University of Technology.