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Martijn Leijten

TPM Faculty | IDEE Community 

From the industry perspective, there is a high demand of engineers who are able to take into account the social dimension of technical systems. Why? Because it is the human use of these technical systems that introduces uncertainty and unpredictability into the mix. Thus there is a need for engineers who are able to take into account this social dimension. However, this requires a change in the way in which TU Delft engineers and students alike regard these issues. With IDEE, we could really contribute to making this change.

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Background 

Martijn Leijten is Assistant Professor of organization and governance at the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management. He has a special interest in anything that has to do with bridging the gap between engineering and management, or the interaction between the technical and the social domain. Martijn is involved in the education of the interfaculty MSc Construction Management and Engineering. As he puts it himself, “At CME, we educate the engineers of the future. Nowadays, a good engineer not only knows about the engineering aspects of a technical system, but is also sensitive to the interplay between the technical and the social system. This is what I try to teach my students.”

Towards IDEE 

When Martijn heard about the call for the IDEE theme Future Engineering Skills, he saw a nice fit between the ambitions of the project and his own education. Martijn has been working on an education innovation in his MSc course Process Management, where students have to design a process in analogy to a blockchain. Instead of there being one central party who leads the design of the process, there are five parties involved that are interdependent on each other and collaboratively have to design a process. The idea behind this innovation is to stimulate students to consider the social and organizational aspects of the design process, in addition to the technical aspect. Martijn is planning to do research on the impact of this innovation and publish the new-found insights. Of course, this could also be a good opportunity for the educational researchers of IDEE to do further research on!

As part of IDEE 

“From the industry perspective, there is a high demand of engineers who are able to take into account the social dimension of technical systems. Why? Because it is the human use of these technical systems that introduces uncertainty and unpredictability into the mix. Thus there is a need for engineers who are able to take into account this social dimension. However, this requires a change in the way in which TU Delft engineers and students alike regard these issues. With IDEE, we could really contribute to making this change.”  

Did you know that ...?

  • Martijn has won the award for Teacher of the Year of the Master’s programme Construction Management and Engineering a grand total of … seven times! 
  • If you want to know more about Martijn’s education innovation for the MSc course Process Management, you can get in touch with Martijn by sending an e-mail to M.Leijten@tudelft.nl