Research
Our position as a general engineering department strengthens our capabilities, enabling multi-disciplinary, collaborative research.
Our researchers work with colleagues from across Warwick and beyond to provide innovative solutions to real-world problems. Partners include universities, SMEs and large businesses, NHS Trusts and charitable trusts.
Our research covers core application themes:
- Biomedical Engineering
- Energy
- Future Cities
- Materials and Manufacturing
- Technology and Society
We work closely with Warwick's Global Research Priorities:
Research staff
Contact our academic and research staff
Research degrees
PhD, MPhil and MSc by Research
Civil and Environmental Engineering
Our researchers work on a broad range of issues underpinning the construction and environmental sectors at both national and international levels. Combining computational modelling with practical experimentation, we tackle issues directly associated with the many challenges posed by the Climate Emergency and linked to UN Sustainable Development Goals. Our research has strong sub-group activities in the fields of Ground Engineering, Structural Engineering, Water Engineering and Pedagogy.
Warwick Ground Engineering group focus not only on the core aspects in geotechnical engineering, such as ground reinforcement, embankment stability of railways or roads, retaining structures, geothermal energy and slope stability, but also on wider cross-disciplinary aspects in geotechnical engineering.
Good design is synonymous with sustainable construction and this requires materials and structures research. Current activites focus on the characterisation of components, joints and whole structures of new or traditional materials, and/or of innovative or unusual forms.
The long term aim of the research is to improve the knowledge of fundamental mixing processes, quantify their relative magnitude and enhance the predictive capacity of models describing the transport, mixing and fate of pollutants and fine sediments within the water environment.
Mechanical, Materials and Process Engineering
The largest and most diverse stream, Mechanical, Materials and Process Engineering includes: chemical engineering; fluids; materials (experimental and simulation); measurement, and sustainable thermal energy technologies.
Our research in Chemical Engineering includes catalysis, green chemistry, batteries, fuel cells and reactor engineering.
The diverse range of fluid flows in nature and technology span scales (from atmospheric to the nanoscale), phenomena (from cavitation to combustion), constituents (from granular to rarefied), biology (from pulmonary air to microvascular blood) and engineering application (from turbulent-drag reduction to explosion hazard detection).
- Micro and Nano Flows for Engineering
- Cavitation Laboratory
Materials is one of our fastest growing areas of research.
There are many ways to characterize a material surface or an internal structure including its shape, size and mechanical properties. In all such measurements, precise knowledge of the dynamic movement and location of different components of machinery is important.
Efficient and sustainable energy development is an ever-present need in the modern world. The need to reduce waste energy in a cost-effective manner, whilst keeping convenience, is a driving force in the work of our STET group.
Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Power, sustainability and improved communications are at the heart of our Electrical and Electronic stream. Key areas of research include: artificial olfaction (or 'electronic nose'); electrical energy conversion; grid-scale energy storage; nanoscale communications; and quantum devices.
The Connected Systems Group brings together radio and optical communications and networks, nanoscale communications, embedded computation, and the tight interplay between computation and communication to explore technologies for transforming how we live and interact with modern infrastructure and services, from online processing and autonomous adaptive systems, to secure networks and wireless systems.
The Electrical Power Research Group at Warwick is set up to conduct internationally leading research and drive for cutting edge technology development in tackling the great challenges in power generation, energy conversion, distribution, transmission and efficient use of energy.
The work in sensors takes place within four main laboratories, and consists of cutting-edge research for use in many application areas, ranging from biomedical imaging and diagnosis through to gas sensing and materials inspection.
Systems and Information Engineering
Systems and Information brings together expertise in: nonlinear and stochastic systems; modelling of human activity; neural engineering; telemedicine; imaging; and synthetic biology. Much of the research undertaken is around health and security and the nature of the work means that many labs are cross-group.
Our research covers problems in fundamental research of humans, human systems and healthcare are interspersed with very applied projects around the design, development and deployment of assistive technologies and rehabilitation techniques.
We focus on computational models and algorithms, the analysis of signal, image and other data, and machine learning; developing fundamental theory and applications relating to the generation, distribution, analysis and use of information in image and video, bioinformatics, health informatics, and optical and wireless communication. Our research into biophysical communication includes biophysical signal propagation, molecular communication engineering and cellular signal processing.
Our research includes the identification of complex engineering systems, system of systems in applications to automotive vehicles and chaotic systems - interplay between noise and chaos.
Associated Centres
- CDT for Deployment of Future Mobility Technologies
- FDRC (Fluid Dynamics Research Centre)
- HetSys (EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Modelling of Heterogeneous Systems)
- Warwick BMEI (Biomedical Engineering Institute)
- WCPM Warwick Centre for Predictive Modelling
- WISB (Warwick Integrative Synthetic Biology