Ibo van de Poel, born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, in 1966. Ph.D. from the University of Twente. Associate Professor of Philosophy at Delft University of Technology.
Fellow (1 September 2009 – 30 June 2010)
ETHICS AND VALUE CONFLICT IN ENGINEERING DESIGN
My main aim for my stay at NIAS was to work on a book about values in engineering design. In my original plan, I focused on value conflict in design. During my stay, I decided to broaden the scope, paying more attention to what exactly values are, and how they can bear on design processes. Working on these issues also led me to new ideas about how to deal with value conflicts. In addition, I investigated how specific values like human well-being and sustainability can be integrated into design. I have now completed about half the book and made an extensive analytic table of contents for the entire book. In addition I worked on several publications during my stay. Some of these were old projects that I still had to complete; others were new and directly related to the topic I had been working on during my stay.