Our research

Mechanical Engineering at Heriot-Watt University is one of the largest departments devoted to this subject in Scotland, and has a strong international reputation in all areas of its research. Each year, we attract new, external research contracts worth around £3M from industry, the research councils and the EU.

We host the James Watt Institute for High Value Manufacturing, which has received funding of more than £11.5M for the period 2003 – 2013 from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, in addition to significant industry funding contributions. Our research strategy has been supported by £16.6M of infrastructure investment, in particular via the Edinburgh Research Partnership (ERP) in Engineering, which has provided an investment of £13M across the 3 ERP Joint Research Institutes (JRI) that we are involved in. We have strong links with industry and many of the projects have particular industrial relevance.

Our research spans the spectrum of traditional mechanical engineering to areas that cross the interface between mechanical engineering and other disciplines (such as materials, medicine, physics, and the built environment) and is divided into five broad themes.

• Design, Manufacture and Robotics
• Energy Technology, Heat Transfer and Fluid Mechanics
• Micromechanics
• Optical Engineering
• Renewable Energy

All of our researchers are also associated with at least one of our four research institutes:
under the ERP:

• JRI in  Signal and Image Processing
• JRI in Integrated Systems
• JRI in Energy

and

• the James Watt Institute for High Value Manufacturing.