Dr Alan Valdez

Professional biography

Miguel Valdez began his career as a software engineer, went on to become a technology journalist, and is currently working as a Lecturer in Technology and Innovation Management in the school of Engineering and Innovation at the Open University.

Research interests

Miguel's research investigates innovation in urban technologies with attention to the institutional capacities in planning, governance and sense-making required to support more sustainable, equitable and inclusive ways of living in cities. His doctoral research applied the Strategic Niche Management framework to study sustainable transport innovation in Milton Keynes, with a particular focus on the sensemaking activities that took place in organisations considering the adoption of electric vehicles under the Plugged-in Places programme. He further developed this understanding of cities as experimental spaces within the transport work package of MK:Smart, a £16 million smart city programme. His current research investigates the urban impact and implications of autonomous robots deployed in urban environments, as well as the urban implications of the data and networking infrastructures required to support data-hungry robots, connected and autonomous vehicles and smart city technologies.

Through his research, Miguel has developed an interest in the ways in which different actors make sense of innovative technologies and develop competing narratives about the future of their city. His research has drawn insights from urban geography and innovation studies to interrogate how the experimental spaces in cities may facilitate the development of new knowledges about sustainable innovation, and on how such knowledges coalesce and travel. This research has been based on disciplinary and interdisciplinary projects grounded in impactful deployments of urban technologies shaping urban policy and management at various scales and attending to alignments and tensions in the outcomes sought by citizens, lead users, industrial actors and policymakers in local and national government. 

Teaching interests

In 2020 Miguel became a Lecturer in Technology and Innovation Management in the School of Engineering and Innovation, taking the role of Presentation Chair of the module T849 'Strategic Capabilities for for Technological Innovation'. In addition to T849, Miguel currently chairs STiP module TB872 'Managing Change with Systems Thinking in Practice'

Miguel's teaching supports or has supported the following OU modules:

T849 'Strategic Capabilities for for Technological Innovation' (Presentation Chair)
TB872 'Managing Change with Systems Thinking in Practice' (Presentation Chair)
T847 'The MSc Professional Project' (Presentation Chair)
T803 'MSc project: researching in context' (Module Team, Production)
TB801 'Technology and innovation management' (Module Team, Production)