It offers a wide range of postgraduate MSc courses, each closely linked to research activity of relevance and strategic importance to the engineering profession and to the civil engineering, offshore and environmental industries. The Department has well-established research and student exchange links with major universities in Europe and North America. Research is funded by a mixture of Research Council, industrial and other sources, amounting to in excess of 1M per annum.
Academic staff offer a wide range of research interests and expertise.
Academic staff publish their research widely and represent the profession on various national and international professional bodies, editorial boards and conference committees. Research leading to the degrees of MPhil and PhD may be undertaken in one of the Department's research groups. In 1996 the Centre for Environmental Resource Management was created when the Department of Civil and Offshore Engineering merged with the Institute of Offshore Engineering and its Orkney-based International Centre for Island Technology . The Centre encompasses the considerable environmental expertise available within the University and brings together staff and research interests in biology, ecology, conservation, marine science, engineering and resource management.