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Andrew Knight

Andrew Knight

Executive Dean

School of Architecture Design and the Built Environment

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 approximately 4,000 students organised into five departments: Architecture, Civil Engineering, Construction Management, Product Design, and Property Management and Development. The School focuses particularly on industry-facing courses and research. Andrew is a qualified Chartered Surveyor who continues to teach and supervise various courses across the school, focusing on professional practice and ethics in addition to his leadership role.

As Executive Dean of the School, Andrew is a member of the Extended University Executive Team and University Leadership Team and contributes to various cross-University tasks, including leading several Industrial Strategic Partnerships.

In terms of research, Andrew’s interest in inter-disciplinary built environment issues, drawing on a range of theoretical approaches, has resulted in almost 20 successful doctoral supervisions. He has published on the intersection between philosophy and the built environment, for example, in the area of social value and ethics. He is currently a coinvestigator on a £260,000 KTP with Allsee Technologies, examining the role of biophilic designs on mental well-being.  He has also contributed to a project examining environmental comfort and sustainability in historic churches funded by the Diocese of London and the Heritage Fund.

Andrew strongly believes 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 RICS candidates.

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 Lecturer in Construction Economics at Sheffield Hallam University. He was then appointed Principal Lecturer at Nottingham Trent University in 2003 with management responsibility for postgraduates before progressing to the role of Head of Department for Construction Management in 2008. After seven years of successful departmental leadership, 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.

Andrew holds a Ph.D. and degrees in Philosophy (MA) and Surveying (BSc MSc).

He is also a graduate of the Advance HE TMP Leadership Programme and a Principal  Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

He is a passionate advocate of lifelong learning and continuing professional development.

Andrew’s personal interests include travel, philosophy and music.

Research areas

Dr Knight has experience in successfully supervising research degree students to completion. Previous areas of supervision and publication have included:

  • Professional ethics
  • Biophilic designs and mental health
  • Social value
  • Value management
  • Supply-chain management
  • Green labelling
  • Logistics management
  • Housing supply and planning in Africa
  • Professional institutions
  • Lean project management
  • Innovation

External activity

External activity has included:

  • Executive Member of the Council of Heads of the Built Environment
  • Working group of the International Ethics Standards Coalition
  • Board Member of Nottingham City Homes RP Housing Association
  • Longstanding RICS involvement in professional ethics and APC 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 various journals.

Sponsors and collaborators

Over the years, Dr Knight has worked with a variety of organisations and currently leads three strategic partnerships with: Volker Fitzpatrick, Arc Partnership, and Morgan Sindall.

Publications

XING, Y., KAR, P., BIRD, J.J., SUMICH, A., KNIGHT, A., LOTFI, A. and CARPENTER VAN BARTHOLD, B., 2024. Developing an AI-based digital biophilic art curation to enhance mental health in intelligent buildings. Sustainability, 16 (22): 9790. ISSN 2071-1050

XING, Y., WILLIAMS, A. and KNIGHT, A., 2024. Developing a biophilic behavioural change design framework - a scoping study. Urban Forestry and Urban Greening, 94: 128278. ISSN 1618-8667

THOMAS, C., XING, Y., KNIGHT, A. and BROWN, D., 2024. Existential biophilic VR therapy – developing a protocol for care settings. In: I. FAJNEROVÁ, P. GAMITO, D.J. BROWN, E. ROSENLUND HØEG and N. SHOPLAND, eds., Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Disability, Virtual Reality and Associated Technologies (ICDVRAT 2024). Prague: National Institute of Mental Health, Czech Republic. ISBN 9788087142639

XING, Y., KAR, P., BIRD, J.J., SUMICH, A., CARPENTER VAN BARTHOLD, B., KNIGHT, A. and LOTFI, A., 2024. Exploring machine learning applications for biophilic art displays to promote health and well-being. In: PETRA '24: proceedings of the 17th International Conference on PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments. New York, NY: ACM. ISBN 9798400717604

See all of Andrew Knight's publications...