Our research areas and facilities

Browse through the full directory of research areas and facilities in the Faculty of Engineering.

Much of our research activity address globally significant issues such as sustainable energy, quality of life, a vibrant economy, and the future of our cities, by pulling together researchers with diverse skills from across the faculty.

Beyond teaching and supervision, our academic staff are heavily involved with industry projects and consulting, as well as being committed to many other professional activities. This clear focus, productivity and aim for excellence continues to attract more than 400 postgraduate students to work in our dynamic environments.

Our research outputs in international refereed journals average in excess of 150 papers each year, on top of over 250 refereed conference papers annually. Added to that is a consistent flow of patents and patent applications, books and book chapters, as well as technical reports.

Our commitment to research excellence has also demonstrably resulted in tens of millions of dollars of benefit for companies who have collaborated with us. We see theory and applications as elements that interact seamlessly to the benefit of both, and welcome enquiries from industry professionals regarding research needs.

With access to expertise and purpose-built facilities, we extend the offer to you to join us, either as collaborators or as students. Our University's research culture is about more than the acquisition of new knowledge – it also leads to a steady stream of highly skilled people moving on to further their careers, be it in industry or academia.

Browse our research areas and facilities

A

Acoustics and Vibration Research Centre
Advanced Computing and Virtual Technologies in Construction
Advanced and nanomaterials research
Aerodynamics and wind engineering
Aerospace and space engineering
Advanced Thermal Engineering and Aerodynamics Centre (ATHENA)

B

Bioengineering

C

Centre for Advanced Composite Materials
Centre for Advanced Materials Manufacturing and Design (CAMMD)

Centre for Automation and Robotic Engineering Sciences (CARES)
Centre of Neural Engineering and Cell Technologies (CoNECT)
Circular Innovations (CIRCUIT) Research Centre 
Centre for Intelligent Manufacturing and Mechatronics (CIMM)
Climate Adaptation Platform
Coastal and Marine Science
Construction Management

D

Decarbonisation and sustainability
Design and Development
Distributed Embedded Intelligence Room (DEIR)
Dynamics and control | Dynamics and control laboratory

E

Electric Power Optimization Centre
Electrification and energy storage
Embedded systems
Energy and environment research
Energy efficiency
Energy security and resilience
Engineering Education Research Centre
Engineering for Natural Hazards Mitigation    
Environmental Engineering

F

Fluid Dynamics
Food and Bioproduct Processing
Forensics and Biometrics

G

Geotechnical Engineering | Geotechnical Engineering Laboratory
Geothermal, Reservoir Engineering and Environmental Fluids
Geothermal Institute
Green Energy Engineering Centre

H

Human Aspects in Software Engineering Lab (HASEL)

I

Industrial Information and Control Centre (I2C2)
Industrial Informatics and Automation (IIA) | IIA laboratory
Industry 4.0 Smart Manufacturing Lab
Infrastructure for Community Futures Research Centre (ICFRC)

Intelligent and Interoperable Manufacturing Systems (IIMS)

L

Light Metals Research Centre

M

Magnesium research
Māori and Pasifika Engineering Research Centre (MPERC)
Medical devices and technologies
Mechanics of Materials and Composites

N

Nanomechanical research laboratory
Neural engineering

O

Oceania Water Research Consortium
Operations Research and Computational Analytics (ORCA)

P

Pacific Engineering
Parallel and Reconfigurable Computing
Power electronics
Power systems

Q

QuakeCoRE

R

Research Centre for Surface and Materials Science
Robotics
Robotics and biomechatronics

S

Separation and Reaction Engineering
Signal Processing
Smart Digital Lab
Smart manufacturing and industrial automation
Smart Materials and Structures
Solid mechanics
Speech Processing and Technology
Structural engineering | Structures Testing Laboratory
Surface and materials science
Systems and control

T

Telecommunications and Electromagnetics
Te Pūnaha Ātea - Space Institute
Thermofluids | Thermofluids laboratory
Transdisciplinary Modelling and Engineering Research Centre (TME)
Transportation Research Centre

W

Water engineering | Water Engineering Laboratory
Water Research Centre
Wind Tunnel Hall

Y

Yacht Research Unit