The Department of Engineering Science is the engineering department of the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in contin ...

. 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 ...

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 le ...

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, thoug ...

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 The Oxford Robotics Institute (ORI) is an interdisciplinary division within the University of Oxford. It is dedicated to researching robotics, artificial intelligence, systems engineering, and other related fields. The ORI is a subsidiary of th ...

), 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 Beg ...

(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 Charles Frewen Jenkin, CBE, FRS (24 September 186523 August 1940) was a British engineer and academic. He held the first chair of engineering at the University of Oxford as Professor of Engineering Science. Early life Jenkin was born on 24 Se ...

, grandfather of Lord Jenkin of Roding. 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 Oxford University Science Area in Oxford, England, is where most of the science departments at the University of Oxford are located. Overview The main part of the Science Area is located to the south of the University Parks and to the ...

. 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 (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
OrganOxFirst Light FusionOxsonics

Oxbotica Oxa (formerly Oxbotica) is an autonomous vehicle software company, headquartered in Oxfordshire, England, and founded by Paul Newman and Ingmar Posner. History In 2013, Newman and Posner led the RobotCar UK project as part of Oxford Unive ...

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 #

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 *

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 &

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 geologica ...

engineering * Thermo-fluids &

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

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., wit ...

and

process A process is a series or set of activities that interact to produce a result; it may occur once-only or be recurrent or periodic. Things called a process include: Business and management *Business process, activities that produce a specific se ...

engineering The department is home to five research institutes:
Oxford-Man Institute for Quantitative Finance (OMI)
#

Oxford e-Research Centre The Oxford e-Research Centre (OeRC) is part of the Department of Engineering Science within the University of Oxford in England and is a multidisciplinary Data science research and education institute. The Centre was founded in 2006, and its wo ...

Oxford Thermofluids Institute

Institute of Biomedical Engineering
#

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 * Philip Torr * Andrew Blake * Roberto Cipolla * Andrew Zisserman *

Brian Spalding Dudley Brian Spalding, FRS FREng (9 January 1923 – 27 November 2016) was Professor of Heat Transfer and Head of the Computational Fluid Dynamics Unit at Imperial College, London. He was one of the founders of computational fluid dynamics (CFD ...

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 dislocation ...

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 * Donal Bradley * 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: Alexander Thom *1961-1977: Douglas William Holder *1979-1989: Charles Peter Wroth *1989-1994: J. Michael Brady *1994-1999: David Clarke *1999-2004: Rodney Eatock Taylor *2004-2009: Richard Darton *2009–2014: Guy Houlsby *2014–2019: Lionel Tarassenko *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 * Donal Bradley, pioneer in molecular electronic materials *

, 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 t ...

. *Constantin Cousssios, distinguished professor in biomedical engineering * Hugh F. Durrant-Whyte, 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 O ...

, founder of

* Alison Noble, medical imaging researcher and first female Statutory Professor in Engineering at Oxford * Janet Pierrehumbert, National Academy of Sciences, ISCA Medal for Scientific Achievement 2020 *

Eleanor Stride Eleanor Phoebe Jane Stride is a Professor of Biomaterials at St Catherine's College, Oxford. Stride engineers drug delivery systems using carefully designed microbubbles and studies how they can be used in diagnostics. Education Stride co ...

, 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 multi ...

* Andrew Zisserman, visionary pioneer in computer vision * Leslie Fox, mathematician, doctorate student of Richard Vynne Southwell. * Bill Bradfield, 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. Th ...

. * 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 h ...

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 method, 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 rang ...

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 Un ...