Professor Will Hughes

Biography

"Professor Will Hughes, Currently working as Professor in the School of Construction, Management and Engineering, University of Reading, United Kingdom. Qualifications: BSc (hons) Manchester PhD CNAA MCIOB My career in construction began as a trainee joiner in 1972. Through part-time study, I earned an ONC in Construction, which qualified me for university entrance. This led to an honours degree in Building Technology from UMIST, followed by a research assistantship with Professor Peter Burberry, in which we investigated the relationship between design and construction for the Building Research Establishment. Subsequently I took up a research fellowship in the Department of Surveying at Liverpool Polytechnic with Professor Anthony Walker, on an SERC project looking at organizational effectiveness in construction projects. I then undertook a lectureship in the same department for five years whilst studying part time for a PhD, which was completed in 1989, on the topic of Organizational Analysis of Building Projects. My work at Reading has included several research projects around issues related to contracts and procurement in construction, major textbooks in construction law, as well as numerous publications on the organization and management of construction. I am on the editorial boards of several international journals. "

Research Interest

My research interests include the control and management of building contracts, the management of design in construction, the analysis of organizational structure, and the analysis of procurement systems. The focus of my work is the commercial processes of structuring, negotiating, recording and enforcing business deals in construction. I have developed a framework for modelling and describing the myriad permutations of procurement variables, to aid in analysis and understanding of the complexities of organizing the procurement of built facilities. This has been incorporated into a British Standard (2011) on construction procurement.