Bent Flyvbjerg joins ITU as Villum Kann Rasmussen professor

Bent Flyvbjerg joins ITU as Villum Kann Rasmussen professor with a prestigious grant by VILLUM FONDEN. Flyvbjerg is BT Professor and Chair of Major Programme Management at Oxford University, and he is the world’s leading and most cited scholar in project and program management, including IT project research.

See the press release here.

Digitalisation is an especially important global megatrend. Almost all large projects and investments in our time – for example metros, industrial plants, and airports – have a major IT element and are in this sense IT projects. In addition, large investments are made in IT projects that are central for the delivery of public services and for the operation of private corporations.

It is our ambition to make Copenhagen an internationally leading centre for research in program management with the funding from VILLUM FONDEN, and with Villum Kann Rasmussen professor Bent Flyvbjerg in the lead. The funding will contribute to leading research in more advanced and efficient digitalisation across industries for the benefit of the development of society, internationally and in Denmark.

“I am extremely happy that Bent Flyvbjerg has decided to join ITU! This giant step for our research is only possible thanks to VILLUM FONDEN and the many individuals within and outside the research community, who have helped us along the way”, says Jens Schmidt, head of Research Centre for Government IT at ITU.

“Flyvbjerg’s research in IT projects is a prominent example of interdisciplinary research that gives both fundamental insight and great impact on society. There is a fruitful match between Flyvbjerg’s research and ITU’s research, for example within AI/Machine Learning, complexity in IT-architecture and Cybersecurity”, says Peter Sestoft, head of the Computer Science Dapartment at ITU.