Campus Management

Chair of Real Estate Management

Leading researcher:
Dr. Ir. Alexandra den Heijer

Over the past twenty years, the department of Management and the Built Environment has made a significant contribution to building a body of knowledge on the management of the campuses of universities. The researchhas contributed to existing theories on real estate management and built new theory. The objective of research has always been to provide tools and information for practice. As such, researching campus management has been at the core of the department’s research on corporate real estate management, exceeding financial and business economics goals and incorporating societal and institutional goals in the decision-making process.

The first phase of the campus research, up to the publication of the dissertation ‘Managing the University Campus’, can be characterized as building standards for campus management: by describing the position of campus management (inreal estate management theory), its purpose (adding value), the management process of adding value (matching supply and demand, now and in the future) and the available tools per step of the management process (campus andproject benchmarks, scenarios, etc.). The current and future research projects are aimed both at further research based on these standards -applied to the European campus and Campus NL- and further research into more specific aspects of campus management. This can be related to a specific type of real estate (learning spaces, technology campuses or the academic workplace), to a specific stakeholder perspective (sustainability) or to the development of more tools for specific parts of the management process (smart tools on campus or new methods for decision-making). Knowledge and tools will be developed in close collaboration with and for universities.

Key publications 

  • Den Heijer, (2011) Managing the University Campus – Information to support real estate decisions. PhD thesis. Eburon Academic Publishers
  • Den Heijer, De Vries, De Jonge (2011) “Developing knowledge cities” in Van Geenhuizen, Marina and Peter Nijkamp, Creative knowledge cities, Edward Elgar, February 2012.
  • Den Heijer and Curvelo Magdaniel (2012) The university campus as a knowledge city: exploring models and strategic choices. International Journal of Knowledge- Based Development, 3(3), 283-304.
  • Den Heijer and Tzovlas (2014) The European Campus - Heritage and Challenges. Arkesteijn, Valks, Binnekamp, Barendse, De Jonge (2015) Designing a Preferencebased Accommodation Strategy: a pilot study at Delft University of Technology. Journal of Corporate Real Estate 17 (2)
  • Curvelo Magdaniel (2016 ) Technology campuses and cities, a study on the relation between innovation and the built environment at the urban area level. PhD Thesis TU Delft.
  • Valks, Arkesteijn, Den Heijer, Vande Putte (2016) Smart campus tools: a study on measuring real use of campus facilities (research project for FM departments of 14 Dutch universities)
  • Den Heijer, Arkesteijn, De Jong (2016) Campus NL. Investing in the future (research project for 14 Dutch universities + VSNU)
  • Alghamdi, N., Den Heijer, A., & De Jonge, H. (2017). Assessment tools’ indicators for sustainability in universities: an analytical overview. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 18(1), 84-115.

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