Working style
Leadership close to the laboratory
Platform leadership at SCSDA stays close to the technical work: reviewing experimental setups and instrumentation, and connecting research groups with the questions their methods can answer.
Smart cities, sustainable infrastructure, digital built environment
Leadership
SCSDA's early platform construction is presented through formal founding leadership, research-centre development, collaboration, and applied project delivery.
Founding Leadership
Founding leadership and platform development.
SCSDA's early platform-construction period was initiated and led by Dr Daguang Han. The work covered institutional planning, research-centre development, international academic links, enterprise engagement, and the delivery of applied research projects. This page presents leadership as an institutional function: setting research directions, building a centre structure, coordinating expert participation, developing partner-facing projects, and communicating applied research outputs through public channels.
During this period, Dr Han served as Founding Dean of the Academy, named as its designated head in the Liangjiang New Area government approval of March 2019, and acted as the founding executive lead for the early research platform. The wider structure also involved expert advisers, centre-level academic and technical leads, project collaborators, and enterprise-facing partners connected to SCSDA's smart city, digital construction, sensing, and sustainable development agenda.
The Academy's cross-border work has also been carried at governance level rather than only at project level: Dr Han serves as Vice-President of the International Innovation Cooperation Center (ICIC), a body chaired by Professor Michael Kraft of KU Leuven. That vantage informs how SCSDA structures its own partnerships — every joint centre rests on a dated signed agreement, because an arrangement that has to survive staff changes on both sides cannot rest on personal contact alone.
Leadership Structure
Founder, expert committee, research centres, and project collaboration.
The Academy's platform was developed through founding leadership, expert engagement, research-centre coordination, project delivery, and collaboration with academic and enterprise partners. This structure is important because it shows how SCSDA moved from an institutional idea into a working applied research platform with recognisable roles, themes, centres, and public outputs.
Founder and Founding Executive Lead
Dr Daguang Han initiated and led the Academy's early platform construction, including institutional planning, research-centre formation, partner engagement, and applied project delivery.
Expert Committee
The historical SCSDA structure included an expert committee with professors, advisors, and specially appointed experts connected to the Academy's research directions.
Research-Centre Leadership
Centre-level academic and technical leads supported research streams such as BIM and digital twins, MEMS sensing, smart infrastructure, sustainable materials, and monitoring systems.
Project Leads and Collaboration Partners
Project leaders, enterprise partners, and research collaborators contributed to applied R&D, training, demonstrators, and engineering validation work.
Founding Leadership Scope
Strategic, academic, and industry-facing responsibilities.
Founding leadership is presented as platform-building work: agenda setting, centre formation, partner development, project formation, expert engagement, institutional reporting, and public communication. These responsibilities describe the practical work behind creating a research academy: translating a technical strategy into centres, projects, people, partnerships, and outputs that can be reviewed by academic and industry audiences.
Strategic Platform Development
Setting the Academy's research agenda across smart cities, digital built environments, sensing, infrastructure intelligence, and sustainable development.
Research-Centre Formation
Coordinating the formation of research centres and laboratories with academic and enterprise partners during the platform-construction period.
Enterprise and Industry Engagement
Building applied research collaborations, project proposals, implementation guides, and engineering validation work.
International Academic Links
Connecting European research expertise with Chongqing-based applied research, engineering education, and public knowledge exchange.
Externally Supported Project Delivery
Leading the organisation, coordination, and reporting of the Academy's platform-construction work during 2019-2023.
External References
Selected public reference links.
Selected public reference links are provided only for source transparency where founding leadership is discussed.