Role
Dr Andrew Knight FRICS is the Executive Dean of the School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment. This role includes the strategic leadership of a School of 4000 students organised into five departments: Architecture, Civil Engineering, Construction Management, Product Design, and Property Management and Development.
Dr Knight is a qualified Chartered Surveyor who continues to teach on various courses across the School with a focus on professional practice and ethics.
In terms of research, his interest in inter-disciplinary built environment questions, drawing on a range of theoretical approaches, has resulted in 15 successful doctoral supervisions. He is on the Editorial Board of the Innovation in the Built Environment book series, published by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and Wiley-Blackwell. He has recently published on the intersection between philosophy and the built environment, for example, in the area of social value.
Dr Knight is a strong believer in the value of professional bodies, both in terms of ensuring the quality of initial and continuing professional education, and more broadly in benefiting society. He has recently been involved in developing new global assessments for candidates of the RICS. Additionally, during the last year, he has been on the working group of the International Ethics Standards Coalition.
Career overview
Andrew commenced his career in local government as a trainee surveyor before moving to private practice after graduating. In the late 1990s, he was appointed as Lecturer, then Senior Lecturer, in Construction Economics at Sheffield Hallam University. He was then appointed Principal Lecturer at Nottingham Trent University in 2003 with responsibility for research students, before progressing to the role of Head of Department for Construction Management in 2008. After seven years of successful departmental management, overseeing a range of strategic initiatives and growth including the establishment of online learning in partnership with Wiley, he was appointed as Acting Associate Dean in 2015, Deputy Dean (Teaching and Learning) in 2016, Dean of School in 2018 and Executive Dean in 2020.
He holds a PhD from the University of Nottingham. During the decades following his PhD, Andrew continued to broaden his intellectual interests, and went on to study courses in both analytic and continental philosophy with a number of UK universities. He is a passionate advocate of lifelong learning and the intrinsic value of education as an end in itself.
Andrew’s personal interests include travel, philosophy and music, particularly the piano.
Research areas
Dr Knight has experience of successfully supervising research degree students to completion. Previous areas of supervision and publication have included:
- Professional ethics
- Social value
- Property management
- Partnering
- Value management
- Supply-chain management
- Green labelling
- Logistics management
- Housing supply and planning in Africa
- Property valuation
- Professional institutions
- Lean project management
- Innovation
External activity
- Working group of the International Ethics Standards Coalition
- RICS involvement in professional ethics and assessment
- Construction and Property Forum: Local Enterprise Partnership
- Editorial Panel, Research Paper Series, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors
- Editorial Panel, Innovation in the Built Environment Book Series, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors
- Reviewer for Construction Management and Economics
- Reviewer for Automation in Construction
- Reviewer for Structural Survey
- 2004, 1st place, Annual Innovation Awards, Research Paper Competition, Chartered Institute of Building
- 2003-present, Counsellor for Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors APC
- 2008-present, Scientific Committee COBRA
- External examiner from BSc to PhD Level
Sponsors and collaborators
Over the years Dr Knight has worked with a variety of organisations including RICS, EPSRC, Morgan Sindall, Mowlem and Woodside.