Rate My Professor Paul Hansen

Emeritus Professor Paul Hansen serves in the Department of Economics at the University of Otago's Otago Business School. He obtained his PhD in Economics from the University of Otago in 1994, MEc in Economics from the Australian National University in 1991, Postgraduate Diploma in Commerce from Otago in 1988, and BCom from Otago in 1987. His career at Otago began in 1988 as a Junior Research Fellow funded by the Ministry of Health, followed by Assistant Lecturer (1989-1990), Teaching Fellow (1992-1993), Lecturer (1994-1996), Senior Lecturer (1997-2006), Associate Professor (2007-2017), and Professor (2018-present). He was Head of the Department of Economics from 2019 to 2020. Additionally, Hansen is co-founder and Director of 1000minds Ltd since 2003, a web application for multi-criteria decision-making and conjoint analysis applied in over 1000 research projects worldwide. He contributed to founding GoSkills.com, a global online-learning platform.

Hansen's research focuses on priority-setting and resource allocation, particularly in the health sector, multi-criteria decision analysis, and conjoint analysis. He teaches microeconomics and health economics. Notable publications include "A new method for scoring multi-attribute value models using pairwise rankings of alternatives" (Journal of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis, 2008), "Which criteria for prioritising new technologies, and what are their relative weights?" (Israel Journal of Health Policy Research, 2012), "How significant are 'high' correlations between EQ-5D value sets?" (Medical Decision Making, 2018), "Rapid development of a tool for prioritizing Covid-19 patients for intensive care" (Critical Care Explorations, 2021), and "Discovery, research, and development of new antibiotics: the WHO priority list of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and tuberculosis" (The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 2018). His contributions include work on WHO Bacterial Priority Pathogens Lists. Awards encompass the Otago Business School Best OBS Citizen Award (2023), Research Impact Award (2018), multiple Otago University Students' Association teaching awards (2003, 2007, 2016 finalist, 2015 and 2017 nominee), and innovation awards for 1000minds such as NZ Hi-Tech Awards finalist (2024) and TUANZ Healthcare Innovation Award (2005). He edited EcoNZ@Otago (2003-2006, 2016-2019), served on the University Senate (2019-2022) and other committees, and delivered his Inaugural Professorial Lecture in 2018 titled "Can we help people make better ones?"