CURRICULUM VITAE (condensed)
MICHAEL TOPHØJ SØRENSEN
Associate Professor in Land Management, Department of
Development and Planning,
Head of School of Surveying and Planning,
- Aalborg University, Denmark
Born 1967, Aalborg, Denmark
Married to Bettina Bisp Jensen, Consultant at Northern Jutland
County Administration; father to three kids (born 1994, 1996 and
1999)
Professional Career
 Master of Science in Surveying, Planning and Land Use
Management – 1994
 Trainee at Ministry of the Environment; connected with the Retail Planning Committee –
1995-1996
 Ph.D. in Land use management and the development of the retail structure - 1999
 Awarded the Nordic Chartered Surveyor’s Congress Prize – 2000
 Member of The L-Study Board, School of Surveying and Planning – since 2003
 Head of the The L-Study Board, School of Surveying and Planning – since 2005
 Head of School of Surveying and Planning - since 2005
 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
Publications
Ph.D.-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.
For details see publication list:
http://www.plan.aau.dk/~tophoej/PUBLIKATIONSLISTE_mts_marts2007.pdf
Professional Interests
General interests:
Land use planning, land use management, land law; and problem based learning (PBL), national
and international marketing of university study programs.
Specific research interests:
 Urban planning and urban regeneration; public participation in planning decisions, planning
policy making and implementation processes (potentials and barriers in policy making and
implementation); land policy implementation tools (in public law as well as in civil law,
including agreements, easements and public-private partnerships), 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;
 Legal rights of individual land owners and other addressees when they are met with
planning regulations.
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 Ph.D.-students; all based on the PBL-concept.
Teaching activities have mainly been related to the following studies and programmes: Chartered
Surveyor (M.Sc. in Planning, Surveying and Land Management); Civil Engineer in Planning and
the Environment; and Civil Engineer in Architecture and Design.
Address and Contact Details
Michael Tophøj Sørensen, Aalborg University, Fibigerstraede 11, DK 9220 Aalborg, Denmark. Tel:
+45 9635 8415, Fax: +45 9815 6541, Email: tophoej@land.aau.dk, Homepage:
www.plan.aau.dk/~tophoej