The Department and its Facilities - Future Developments

An artist's impression of the atrium that would replace the current courtyard (Nicholas Ray Associates) Since its foundation in 1875, the Department of Engineering has grown to become the largest department in the University and the largest integrated engineering department in the UK with over 140 faculty, 200 contract research staff and research fellows, nearly 600 research students and over 1000 undergraduates.

In 2011, world rankings continued to place Cambridge as the number one university outside the USA for engineering and technology (e.g. the Shanghai Jiao Tong University, THES and QS rankings). In the most recent national Research Assessment Exercise (2008), the Department of Engineering at Cambridge came far ahead of any other institution in General Engineering and its result was not surpassed by any institution in any other engineering or scientific discipline.

The Department of Engineering seeks to benefit society by creating world-leading engineering knowledge that fosters sustainability, prosperity and resilience. We share this knowledge and transfer it to industry through publication, teaching, collaboration, licensing and entrepreneurship. By integrating engineering disciplines in one department, we can address major challenges and develop complete solutions, serving as an international hub for engineering excellence. Undergraduate teaching is of paramount importance; our students will have the greatest effect on changing the world. This explains our focus on continually evolving our teaching structures and techniques including refinements to project work and connections to our leading research programmes.

The Department is pushing ahead with a new set of research themes in 2012 which pull together a wide range of core disciplinary strengths to address particular challenges:

  • Energy, Transport and Urban Infrastructure
  • Uncertainty, Risk and Resilience
  • Engineering for Life Sciences and Healthcare
  • Inspiring Research Through Industrial Collaboration

The Department has completed a series of projects to develop facilities on its central city site on Trumpington Street. Major projects are in planning to create new research space and a central hub for the whole department. On the West Cambridge site, the Department's state-of-the-art Electrical Engineering Building and the new Alan Reece Building for the Institute for Manufacturing are both fully operational.