Michael Tophøj Sørensen is originally trained as a land surveyor and therefore deals with all aspects of "land" (areas and properties), but especially

- Strategic policy making,

- land use planning and

- development of cities, the coastal zone and rural areas,

all with a view to sustainability in terms of both

- functionality, nature protection and environmental sustainability (e.g. climate gas reduction climate adaptation, nature protection, reduction of land take, etc.), and

- social and economic sustainability (e.g. housing and forms of ownership, protection of property rights and legal certainty).

Professional Career

• Master of Science in Surveying, Planning and Land Use Management – 1994

• PhD-fellow, Aalborg University - 1995-1999

• Trainee at Ministry of the Environment; connected with the Retail Planning Committee – 1995-1996

• PhD (thesis: Land Use Management and the Development of the Retail Structure) - 1999

• Assistant Professor, Aalborg University - 1998-2001

• Awarded the Nordic Chartered Surveyor’s Congress Prize – 2000

• Associate Professor, Aalborg University - 2001-2010

• Member of The L-Study Board, School of Surveying and Planning – 2003-2010

• Head of the The L-Study Board, School of Surveying and Planning – 2005-2010

• Head of School of Surveying and Planning - since 2005-2010

• The Danish Chartered Surveyors Association’s delegate in FIG (International Federation of Surveyors), Commission 2 – since 2006

• Visiting researcher, Tokyo Institute of Technology (Dept. of Social Engineering) – April and May 2007

• Head of the local host committee – 3rd International Conference on Planning, Law and Property Rights, Aalborg - 11-13 February 2009

• Member of ExCo, International Academic Association on Planning, Law and Property Rights – 2009-2010

• Head of School (full time), School of Architecture, Design and Planning, Aalborg University - 2010-2018

• Master of Business Administration - 2014

• Associated professor - (again) since 2018

• Member of The PL-Study Board (and program manager, Surveying and Planning) - since 2018
• Member of European Commission's Regiostars Jury 2021 (Green Europe category)

Publications

• PhD-thesis; sundry consultancy reports; and several articles on Land Use Management, Spatial Planning and Land Law. Several invited papers and presentations at national and international conferences and seminars

• See further in publication list

Professional Interests

General interests:

• Local development, land use planning and management, land law

• Problem based learning (PBL), efficient teaching, national and international recruitment of the "right" students to small education programs within technical science

Specific research interests:

• Local development and urban planning including urban regeneration and transformation, public participation in planning decisions, planning policy making and implementation processes (potentials and barriers in policy making and implementation)

• Urban and land policy implementation tools (in public law as well as in civil law, including agreements, easements and public-private partnerships)

• Legal rights of individual land owners and other addressees when they are met with planning and other public regulations

• Planning methods and theory, the role of planning

• Retail development and planning, driving forces in the development of the retail structure, potentials and obstacles to steer and regulate the retail structure

Teaching Experiences

• Courses in land law, local planning, planning administration/consideration of cases, planning implementation and implementation tools, planning and regulation theory, planning methods

• Supervision of bachelor-, master- and PhD-students; all based on the PBL-concept