The Department of Engineering Science is the engineering department of the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. It is part of the university's Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division. The department was ranked 3rd best institute in the UK for engineering in the 2021

Research Excellence Framework The Research Excellence Framework (REF) is a research impact evaluation of British higher education institutions. It is the successor to the Research Assessment Exercise and it was first used in 2014 to assess the period 2008–2013. REF is under ...

. It is principally located on a triangular plot formed by

Banbury Road Banbury Road is a major arterial road in Oxford, England, running from St Giles' at the south end, north towards Banbury through the leafy suburb of North Oxford and Summertown, with its local shopping centre. Parallel and to the west is the ...

to the west,

Parks Road Parks Road is a road in Oxford, England, with several Oxford University colleges along its route. It runs north–south from the Banbury Road and Norham Gardens at the northern end, where it continues into Bradmore Road, to the junction with B ...

to the east and

Keble Road Keble Road is a short road running east–west in central Oxford, England. To the west is the southern end of the Banbury Road with St Giles' Church opposite. To the east is Parks Road with the University Parks opposite. Blackhall Road lead ...

to the south. The main building is the tall 1960s Thom Building that dominates the local landscape, especially the view from the

University Parks The Oxford University Parks, commonly referred to locally as the University Parks, or just The Parks, is a large parkland area slightly northeast of the city centre in Oxford, England. The park is bounded to the east by the River Cherwell, thou ...

to the east. Further lower buildings have been added to the north since then. The department shares buildings with the Department of Materials.

Buildings

The department is based in the Thom Building, built in 1960, which houses two main lectures theatres, four floors of teaching, research and technical support laboratories, core administration offices and a student study area. The adjacent array of four interconnected buildings house departmental professor and postgraduate research space, some of which is shared with the Department of Materials. The department also maintains satellite facilities in a number of locations throughout the city. This includes the Old Road Campus Building, which houses th
Institute of Biomedical Engineering
the Southwell Building (th
Oxford Thermofluids Institute
, Eagle House (th
Oxford Man Institute for Quantitative Finance
, the George Building (the Oxford Robotics Institute), and

Begbroke Science Park Begbroke Science Park is a science park located five miles north of Oxford, England. It is owned by Oxford University and managed as part of the university's Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division It lies within the parish of Begb ...

(the Institute for Advanced Technology building).

History

Holder Tower, Department of Engineering Science, Oxford

The department was originally established in 1908 with the appointment of the first Professor of Engineering Science at Oxford, Frewen Jenkin, grandfather of

Lord Jenkin of Roding Charles Patrick Fleeming Jenkin, Baron Jenkin of Roding, (7 September 1926 – 20 December 2016) was a British Conservative Party politician who served as a cabinet minister in Margaret Thatcher's first government. Life and career Jenkin wa ...

. The Jenkin Building is named after him. On 2 February 1909, the Honour School of Natural Science (Engineering Science) was formally instituted by a Statute of Oxford University. The School was initially located at 6

, on the south side of what is now known as the Keble Road Triangle, part of the Oxford University Science Area. The main part of the department has remained and expanded at this location to the present day. The Thom Building, built in 1963, is named after

Alexander Thom Alexander Thom (26 March 1894 – 7 November 1985) was a Scottish engineer most famous for his theory of the Megalithic yard, categorisation of stone circles and his studies of Stonehenge and other archaeological sites. Life and work Early ...

(1894–1985), a Scottish engineer who was also a professor of engineering at Oxford. The adjacent Holder Building followed in 1976. The department celebrated its Centenary in 2008 and Lord Jenkin acted as its Patron.

Spin-offs

There have been approximately 40 spin-offs from research done in the Department of Engineering Science. These companies operate in the medical, biotech, energy, transport, instrumentation, materials, nanotech, optics, robotics, and information technology spaces. The list includes PowderJect Pharmaceuticals,

YASA Yasa was a bhikkhu during the time of Gautama Buddha. He was the sixth bhikkhu in the Buddha's sangha and was the sixth to achieve arahanthood. Yasa lived in the 6th century BCE in what is now Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in northern India. Yasa wa ...

OrganOxFirst Light FusionOxsonics

Oxbotica Oxa (formerly Oxbotica) is an autonomous vehicle software company, headquartered in Oxfordshire, Oxfordshire, England, and founded by Paul Newman (engineer), Paul Newman and Ingmar Posner. History In 2013, Newman and Posner led the RobotCar ...

Sensyne HealthOxVentMind Foundry
an
Opsydia

Undergraduate study

The intake of students into the department is between 160 and 170 annually. The department offers a general engineering course, where students only specialise in one of six areas in their third and fourth years of their Masters in Engineering degree (MEng). These specialisations are: #

Biomedical engineering Biomedical engineering (BME) or medical engineering is the application of engineering principles and design concepts to medicine and biology for healthcare purposes (e.g., diagnostic or therapeutic). BME is also traditionally logical sciences ...

Chemical engineering Chemical engineering is an engineering field which deals with the study of operation and design of chemical plants as well as methods of improving production. Chemical engineers develop economical commercial processes to convert raw materials in ...

Civil engineering Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads, bridges, canals, dams, airports, sewa ...

Electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

Information engineering Information engineering is the engineering discipline that deals with the generation, distribution, analysis, and use of information, data, and knowledge in systems. The field first became identifiable in the early 21st century. The component ...

Mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, ...

Students can also choose to follow an Engineering, Entrepreneurship and Management (EEM) pathway in the third and fourth years of their degree. This option is taught in coordination with the

Saïd Business School Saïd Business School (Oxford Saïd or SBS) is the business school of the University of Oxford. The School is a provider of management education and is consistently ranked as one of the world's top business schools. Oxford School of Management ...

Graduate study and research

The Department of Engineering Science carries out research in the following areas: *

Civil Civil may refer to: *Civic virtue, or civility *Civil action, or lawsuit * Civil affairs *Civil and political rights *Civil disobedience *Civil engineering *Civil (journalism), a platform for independent journalism *Civilian, someone not a membe ...

& offshore engineering *

Electrical Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described ...

& opto-electronic engineering *

Energy engineering Energy engineering or Energy Systems Engineering is a broad field of engineering dealing with energy efficiency, energy services, facility management, plant engineering, environmental compliance, sustainable energy and renewable energy tec ...

Information Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random, ...

control Control may refer to: Basic meanings Economics and business * Control (management), an element of management * Control, an element of management accounting * Comptroller (or controller), a senior financial officer in an organization * Controlli ...

vision Vision, Visions, or The Vision may refer to: Perception Optical perception * Visual perception, the sense of sight * Visual system, the physical mechanism of eyesight * Computer vision, a field dealing with how computers can be made to gain und ...

engineering *

Solid mechanics Solid mechanics, also known as mechanics of solids, is the branch of continuum mechanics that studies the behavior of solid materials, especially their motion and deformation under the action of forces, temperature changes, phase changes, and ...

materials Material is a substance or mixture of substances that constitutes an object. Materials can be pure or impure, living or non-living matter. Materials can be classified on the basis of their physical and chemical properties, or on their geolog ...

engineering * Thermo-fluids &

turbomachinery Turbomachinery, in mechanical engineering, describes machines that transfer energy between a rotor and a fluid, including both turbines and compressors. While a turbine transfers energy from a fluid to a rotor, a compressor transfers energy from ...

Chemical A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., w ...

and process engineering The department is home to five research institutes:
Oxford-Man Institute for Quantitative Finance (OMI)
# Oxford e-Research Centre
Oxford Thermofluids Institute

Institute of Biomedical Engineering
# Oxford Robotics Institute The research degrees offered by the department are MSc(R), DEng and DPhil. The department has approximately 500 postgraduate research students.

Research Evaluation

The department was ranked 3rd among UK engineering departments in 2021

(REF), having previously ranked 1st in 2014.

Notable people

;Fellows of the Royal Society * J. Michael Brady *

Alison Noble Julia Alison Noble (born 28 January 1965) is a British engineer. She has been Technikos Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Oxford and a fellow of St Hilda's College since 2011, and Associate Head of the Mathematical, Ph ...

* Philip Torr * Andrew Blake *

Roberto Cipolla Roberto Cipolla (born 1963), , FREng, is a British researcher in computer vision and Professor of Information Engineering at the University of Cambridge. Education Cipolla was born in Solihull, England and attended Langley School in Soli ...

Andrew Zisserman Andrew Zisserman (born 1957) is a British computer scientist and a professor at the University of Oxford, and a researcher in computer vision. As of 2014 he is affiliated with DeepMind. Education Zisserman received the Part III of the Mathema ...

* Brian Spalding *

Frederick Charles Frank Sir Frederick Charles Frank, OBE, FRS (6 March 1911 – 5 April 1998) was a British theoretical physicist. He is best known for his work on crystal dislocations, including (with Thornton Read) the idea of the Frank–Read source of dislocatio ...

Warren East (David) Warren Arthur East (born 27 October 1961) is the former chief executive officer (CEO) of Rolls-Royce Holdings, a leading UK-based engine manufacturer. He previously held senior positions at ARM Holdings and Texas Instruments. Educatio ...

, CEO of Rolls-Royce *

Hugh F. Durrant-Whyte Hugh Francis Durrant-Whyte (born 6 February 1961) is a British-Australian engineer and academic. He is known for his pioneering work on probabilistic methods for robotics. The algorithms developed in his group since the early 1990s permit autono ...

Donal Bradley Donal Donat Conor Bradley is the Vice President for Research at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia. From 2015 until 2019, he was head of the Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division of the Univers ...

* Charles Frewen Jenkin * Richard Vynne Southwell *

Derman Christopherson Sir Derman Guy Christopherson (6 September 1915 – 7 November 2000) was a British engineering science academic. Early life and education Christopherson was born the son of a clergyman, Derman Christopherson (the vicar of Plumstead in southeast ...

* David Clarke * Laszlo Solymar ;Timoshenko Medal Recipients * Richard Vynne Southwell ; Heads of Department * 1908-1929: Charles Frewen Jenkin *1929-1942: Richard Vynne Southwell *1945-1961:

*1961-1977: Douglas William Holder *1979-1989:

Charles Peter Wroth Charles Peter Wroth (1929–1991) was a British civil engineer, a world pioneer in geotechnical engineering and soil mechanics. He led the design and construction of the Hammersmith flyover. Education Wroth was educated at Marlborough College ...

*1989-1994: J. Michael Brady *1994-1999: David Clarke *1999-2004: Rodney Eatock Taylor *2004-2009:

Richard Darton Richard Charles Darton, (born 1 July 1948Debrett's ...

*2009–2014: Guy Houlsby *2014–2019:

Lionel Tarassenko Lionel Tarassenko, (born 17 April 1957) is a British engineer and academic, who is a leading expert in the application of signal processing and machine learning to healthcare. He was previously Head of Department of Engineering Science (Dean of ...

*2019–present: Ronald A. Roy ; Alumni and researchers who have made significant contributions *

Rowan Atkinson Rowan Sebastian Atkinson (born 6 January 1955) is an English actor, comedian and writer. He played the title roles on the sitcoms '' Blackadder'' (1983–1989) and '' Mr. Bean'' (1990–1995), and the film series ''Johnny English'' (2003–20 ...

, actor, comedian, and screenwriter * Brian Bellhouse, founder of PowderJect *

, pioneer in molecular electronic materials * Brian Spalding, a founder of

computational fluid dynamics Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a branch of fluid mechanics that uses numerical analysis and data structures to analyze and solve problems that involve fluid flows. Computers are used to perform the calculations required to simulate ...

. *Constantin Cousssios, distinguished professor in biomedical engineering *

, known for probabilistic methods for robotics *

, CEO of

Rolls-Royce Holdings Rolls-Royce Holdings plc is a British multinational aerospace and defence company incorporated in February 2011. The company owns Rolls-Royce, a business established in 1904 which today designs, manufactures and distributes power systems for ...

, theoretical physicist * Shaukat Hameed Khan, optical physicist *

Paul Newman (engineer) Paul Michael Newman (born 1973) is a British engineer and academic, the BP Professor of Information Engineering at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Keble College, Oxford. He is head of the Oxford Mobile Robotics Group (MRG) and CTO at Oxa ...

, founder of

, medical imaging researcher and first female Statutory Professor in Engineering at Oxford *

Janet Pierrehumbert Janet Pierrehumbert (b. 1954) is Professor of Language Modelling in the Oxford e-Research Centre at the University of Oxford and a senior research fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. She developed an intonational model which includes a grammar ...

, National Academy of Sciences, ISCA Medal for Scientific Achievement 2020 * Eleanor Stride, pioneer in drug delivery systems, Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists *

Anne Trefethen Anne Elizabeth Trefethen FREng is Pro Vice-Chancellor (People & Gardens, Library and Museums), and professor of Scientific Computing at the University of Oxford. She is a fellow of St Cross College. Her work in industry and academia focuses on ...

, computer scientist and professor of

high-performance computing High-performance computing (HPC) uses supercomputers and computer clusters to solve advanced computation problems. Overview HPC integrates systems administration (including network and security knowledge) and parallel programming into a mult ...

, visionary pioneer in computer vision * Leslie Fox, mathematician, doctorate student of Richard Vynne Southwell. *

Bill Bradfield Keith Noel Everal ("Bill") Bradfield , FIEAust (25 December 1910 – 12 June 2006), also known as K. N. E. Bradfield, was an Australian civil and aviation engineer, public servant and diplomat, who served two terms as Australia's Permanent Repres ...

, aviation engineer, and recipient of

Edward Warner Award The Edward Warner Award is an award that's given in the field of aviation to aviation pioneers or organizations that have contributed to civil aviation. The award is named after Edward Pearson Warner, the first President of the council of ICAO. T ...

. * Ann Nicholson, Dean in the Faculty of Information Technology of

Monash University Monash University () is a public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Named for prominent World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. The university has ...

References

External links

Department of Engineering Science website

Oxford University Engineering Society

Society of Oxford University Engineers
— the alumni society for Oxford engineering graduates

{{DEFAULTSORT:Oxford University, Engineering Science Department 1908 establishments in England Educational institutions established in 1908

Engineering Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...