DrJon Paul Faulkner

Dr Faulkner teaches across undergraduate and postgraduate planning programmes at University College Dublin and Chang’an Dublin International College. His teaching spans comparative planning, rural and regional planning, urban governance and transportation, GIS and spatial analysis, research methods, planning theory and history, environmental policy and sustainability. His approach is research-led, applied and student-centred, with particular emphasis on developing students’ ability to make defensible planning judgements using evidence, critical reasoning and an understanding of competing social, environmental and economic objectives.

His teaching experience includes Comparative Planning, examining differences between planning systems, institutions and policy approaches across national contexts; Rural & Landscape Planning, addressing rural restructuring, land-use conflict, settlement, landscape and environmental governance; and Governing the City: Administration & Transportation, examining metropolitan governance, transport and the institutional challenges facing contemporary cities. His teaching experience also includes Introduction to GIS, where students develop spatial-data, mapping and analytical skills while learning to interpret GIS evidence in relation to planning problems; Research Methods, History of City Planning, Planning, Environment & Public Policy, and thesis and capstone modules. He has contributed guest teaching on urban resilience within Sustainable Cities. His research provides a direct evidence base for teaching sustainability, transport and environmental planning through applied examples from rural vulnerability and resilience, compact growth, the National Land Use Evidence Review, CoBioEcon, environmental noise and health research, and ATMOPOLIS.

A central feature of his pedagogy is scenario-based policy reasoning. Students are asked to move beyond describing policy by evaluating alternative planning responses, assessing evidence, identifying who benefits and who bears costs, and considering implementation constraints and alternative pathways. Faulkner supervises MSc research and mentors doctoral work across rural and regional development, spatial planning, bioeconomy transition, GIS and environmental health. His teaching seeks to connect planning theory, spatial evidence and policy implementation so that students understand not only what planning policies propose, but how planners can justify decisions under conditions of uncertainty, conflict and transition.