Department of Engineering

Context

The strength in the department arises from the “General Engineering” ethos, where we pursue research and generate impact that spans traditional engineering disciplines and beyond into policy and industry.

Departmental strategy, goals and future plans

The Department is now in the early stages of a ten-year period of strategic growth, which is seeking to increase our academic staff numbers to 80 FTE by 2024, including taking positive action to make a step-change in our gender balance. The key strategic aims over this REF period have been: globally, to increase our impact on society; and locally, to improve the research culture within the Department.

Staff body

Within the sector, we are a small department, with an academic staff headcount of 30 per cent of the average for Russell Group Engineering Departments for the majority of the REF assessment period. The Department has 47 academic staff (45.25 FTE), including 17 Professors, 13 Associate Professors and 17 Assistant Professors. Reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of the department and activity, the academic staff have a broad range of expertise covering the traditional Engineering disciplines as well as Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics, and they come from diverse backgrounds, e.g. with just over 40 per cent of Category A staff identifying as  Black, Asian and other minority ethnic groups . 

Research environment

The Department has invested in excess of £11 million which has supported our well-resourced laboratories and provided a vibrant working environment, where all staff have engaged with our research culture of “quality rather than quantity” in publishing. Research in the Department is focused around three Grand Challenges and these facilitate an environment that encourages interdisciplinary research conversations to take place. These involve academic staff from different engineering and many other disciplines on common research themes, often including academic colleagues, policymakers and industrialists who are visiting us from across the globe.

Impact and engagement activities of department

To help guide development of our future research and impact strategies the Department formed a Strategic Advisory Board which acts as a critical friend to help guide us going forward. The Chair is Professor Brent Cheshire CBE, the founder of Ørsted’s UK operations and their Country Chairman and Managing Director up until his retirement in 2017.