Paul Chan

Background 

Paul Chan is professor of design and construction management at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, with a special interest in the sociotechnical perspective on new technologies and the way in which people cope with organizational, social and technological change. As an educator, Paul is convinced that a key competency students need to acquire during their engineering studies is leadership.  

Towards IDEE 

Given his passion for education and a focus on leadership competencies, Paul was thrilled to join the IDEE theme on Future Engineering Skills. A common fear, shared by students and teachers alike, is that skills education will always be at the expense of high-quality technical or engineering education. Paul, however, is convinced that quite the opposite is true. Good engineering education is education that trains the engineer to be prepared for the future. According to Paul, this is someone who has mastered not only technical knowledge and skills, but is also able to see the societal relevance of their technical innovations and be comfortable dealing with uncertainty.

As part of IDEE

“Our students cannot afford to focus solely on technical knowledge and skills. With IDEE, we can really contribute to designing education innovation that takes an integrated approach to engineering and skills education”.  

Did you know that ...?

• Paul is involved in the NWO project Stepping Out: a project that focusses on accelerating deep transdisciplinary and interprofessional learning. 
• Paul developed the MSc course Leadership and Strategic Management which is now a mandatory component of the interfaculty MSc Construction Management and Engineering.