Research expertise
Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering
Research in the Department is organised into five research groups:
Applied Aerodynamics aims for enhanced understanding of, and improved measurement and numerical techniques for, industrially relevant aeronautical and automotive flow problems.Control and Reliability is focused on the development and application of advanced dynamics and control techniques, and risk and reliability analysis.
Low Carbon Technology is carrying out research that leads to enhanced understanding of industrially relevant low carbon technologies.
Light Weight Structures is associated with the design of optimised lightweight metal and composite structural systems.
Structure Dynamics and Acoustics conducts research into acoustic, vibration, and structural dynamics phenomena in Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering.
School of the Arts
Contemporary Art Practices and Theories; Aesthetics; Drawing; Painting; Performance; Photography; Art in the Public Sphere; Sculpture; Video/Moving Image; Socially/Politically Engaged Art; Collaborative Art Practices; Modern European Art History and Theory; Post-Colonial Art History and Practice; Cultural History; Women’s Art Practice; Feminist Aesthetics; Design History; Visual and Material Culture; Textile Design, Manufacture and Marketing; Contemporary Jewellery and Ceramics, Practice and History; Communication Arts Media/Illustration; Graphic Design, High Technology, Future Trends; Digital Media Arts and Animation.
School of Business and Economics
Accounting, Finance and Banking: Banking and Finance; Management Accounting; SME Finance; Technology Entrepreneurship; Innovation management; Human Resource Management and Organizational Behaviour: Career Management and Professions; Employee Management; Employment Relations and HRM; Job Design; Mobile Working; Safety Climate & Culture
International Business and Strategy: Corporate Governance and Firm Performance; Internationalisation Strategies and Negotiations; Strategy Formation and Implementation; Transnational Teams
Macroeconomics, Money and Finance: Bank Regulation; Financial Development and Liberalisation; Monetary Policy; Monetary Unions and Exchange Rate Policy; Optimal Monetary Policy and Voting Behaviour; Stock Market Performance; Time Series Econometrics
Management Science and Information Systems: Decision Support Systems; Information Systems and Management; Knowledge Management; Operational Research; Scheduling and Logistics
Marketing and Retailing: Automotive Retail Management, Branding and Promotions; Consumer Behaviour; International Marketing; Service Quality
Microeconomics, Industrial Organisation and Trade: International Trade and Industrial Organisation; Airline Competition; Environmental Sustainability; Foreign Direct Investment; Productivity Analysis and Efficiency; R&D and Innovation; Search Behaviour of Consumers and Firms; Spillovers and Regulation, Tax Competition
Chemical Engineering
Biological Engineering including: Bioprocess engineering; Tissue engineering and regenerative medicine; Automated tissue and cell culture; Cell based therapies; Microbial fermentation and animal cell culture; Analytical cytology and non-invasive monitoring; Microfluidic lab-on-a-chip devices; Systems biology; Bioelectrical engineering.
Pharmaceutical Engineering including: Development of drug delivery devices in skin and intervertebral disc; Controlled release PLGA based biopolymer particles; Population balance and CFD modelling of pharmaceutical crystallizers, bioreactors, and downstream process units; Crystallisation Systems Engineering; Experimental measurements of flow and turbulence in chemical reaction vessels; Process analytical and quality-by-design technologies; Pharmaceutical process control; Preparation of high yielding process routes for the synthesis of pharmaceuticals; Production of pharmaceutical powders for pulmonary delivery by spray freeze drying; Production of drug delivery systems based on multiple emulsions, and other biocompatible micro- and nano-particles.
Nano- and Micro-Materials Engineering including: Membrane emulsification processes; Encapsulated and controlled release products; Spray drying of coacervate particles for flavourings; Microfluidic production of highly uniform particulates; Ion exchange microparticles combined with microfiltration; Colloidal aggregation and separations; Wetting phenomena of surfaces and particles; Dispersion and characterisation of nanoparticles.
Chemistry
Security including: Novel Materials for the Detection of High Explosives; Novel techniques for the imaging of “removed” fingerprints; New reagents for fingermark development; Invisible inks for use in security applications.
Energy including: The Quantum Theory of Electron Transfer; Novel electrodes for energy applications made from the polymeric metal (SN)x; Utilisation of CO2 Using Sunlight-Driven Electrosynthesis; Novel Exitonic Solar Cell Development; Light-driven H2 Generation; Solar Assisted CO2 Reduction; Advanced Methods for Preparation Nanostructured Electrodes; Electrochemical Devices for Energy Generation and Storage; N-Heterocyclic Carbenes (NHCs) as CO2 Trapping and Delivery Agents and Photoinduced electron transfer in thin films.
Environment including: The Effect of Non-Aqueous Phase Liquids (NAPLs) on Radionuclide Transport; Novel Radiochemical Methodologies For Rapid Actinide And Lanthanide Analyses And Separations From Complex Matrices (with AWE); Transfer and speciation of transuranium elements and others from Chernobyl wastes (with Portsmouth University); Transport of Nanoparticles in the Environment – Experiment and Modelling (with Birmingham University); The coordination chemistry of Technetium(IV); Conversion of Carbon Dioxide and Other Small Molecules into High Value Products; Utilisation of CO2 Using Sunlight-Driven Electrosynthesis.
Health including: Advanced Search and Rescue Sensors and Systems; Integrated volatile metabolite profiling; Golden hydroamination reactions; a powerful combination for environmentally friendly C-N bond formation; The discovery of novel biomarkers for cancer diagnosis and response to therapy; New Gallium complexes for radiochemistry and medical imaging; Ion Mobility Spectrometry/Mass Spectrometry for mechanism elucidation; Novel Nucleophilic Acylation; Palladium Catalyzed Reactions of Vinylcycloproanes; Fused Pyridones – Potential Protein Kinase Inhibitors for Cancer Therapy; Acyltetramic Acids – A Scaffold for Novel Antibacterial Agents; Fused Imidazolines – Making Rings for Biological Activity; Oxidation of Amidines – Towards the Pyoverdin Siderophores; Synthesis of Polysulfide Marine Natural Products; Novel Tandem Oxidation-Rearrangement Methodologies Towards Oxindoles; Towards Personalised Chemotherapy. The effect of particle-particle interactions on dosing rates in inhaled drug formulations.
Civil and Building Engineering
Built Environment
Sustainability and Building Performance – pioneering work in energy efficiency and low carbon technologies for the built environment; Innovative Construction Technologies – develop novel technologies for enhancing the performance of built assets through-life; Resilient built environment – developing technologies, processes and policies to render the built environment more resilient to natural and human induced threats; Management of Human Resources – at the vanguard of new thinking regarding the management of people within the sector (e.g. ageing workforce, gender issues) and instrumental in shaping health and safety research in construction; Advanced Information and Communication Technologies – renowned for groundbreaking work in mobile IT, knowledge and information management, improved collaboration and legal issues; Construction Business Processes – new directions in construction business process research, including design management, supply chains, value management, organisational aspects
Water and Waste Management
Solid Waste Management – waste compression, separation and bioreactor designs, emissions, sustainable waste management; Flooding and Erosion – modelling for erosion and water quality, analysis of dynamic boundary turbulence in river flooding; Provision of Water Supplies – pipe/soils/water borne contaminant interactions, water sustainability, influence of social structure on access to water and waste treatment in developing countries
Transport and Infrastructure
Mobility Management – both demand- and supply-based measures; Environment and Sustainability – low carbon transport systems, personal carbon trading, emission reduction for air transport, sustainable transport for the urban poor; Infrastructure Engineering – including slope and pavement engineering, artificial sport surfaces design, structural integrity of cable-supported bridges; Transport Technology and Safety – modelling of road traffic accidents, GIS/spatial data in transport, artificial intelligence in transport and transport modelling; Air Transport – propensity to fly, impact of the Open Skies agreement, modelling aircraft accidents, low-cost carriers’ pricing, competitive behaviour and impact, the economic impacts of aviation and globalisation and security; Structures and Materials – advanced and precast concretes, additive manufacturing, repair of concrete structures, computational dynamics, structural analysis and design, adaptable buildings
Computer Science
Networks, Communications and Control Systems (NCCS) including: Internet Based Control; Network Algorithms; Network Congestion Control; Network Performance Measurement and Modelling; Network Security; QoS Provisioning and Enhancement in Heterogeneous Networks; Remote System Integration; Wireless Sensor Networks
Vision, Imaging & Autonomous Systems including: Autonomous Systems and Robotics; Image, Motion and Video Analysis; Image Feature Extraction; Object Recognition and Scene Understanding; Visual Surveillance; Biometrics; Multi-scale Imaging; Audio Analysis and Signal Processing; Image and Video Coding and Processing; Multiview and Stereo Imaging; Coding Standards; Image and Video Watermarking; Handwriting and Face Recognition; Computer and Machine Vision; Texture Mapping, Rendering; Computer Graphics; Bioinformatics; Image Rendering; Machine Learning; Time Series Prediction and Stock Market Forecasting; Multi-objective Optimisation; Human Visual Tasks and Activities; Medical Diagnostic Equipment/Algorithms; Medical Imaging; Vehicles and Driver Safety Systems; Healthcare Ergonomics.
Intelligent and Interactive Systems including: Artificial Intelligence; Decision Support Systems; E-Learning and Instruction Systems; Fuzzy Systems; Safety-critical Systems; Environmental Modelling; Machine Learning; UAVs; VR Applications; Workflow Systems; Multiagent Systems; Games Theory.
Theoretical Computer Science Division including: Algorithmic Learning Theory; Formal Languages; Combinatorics on Words; Error Correcting Codes; Cryptography Sequences; Temporal Logic; Transactional Concurrency; Graph Theory; Rational Parametrisation; Image Processing; Numerical Solution of Linear Systems; Numerical Linear Algebra; Scientific Computation.
Interdisciplinary Computing including: Biomechanics; Injury Prevention; Spine Modelling; Spine Curvature Analysis; Safety Design; Design for the Needs of Pregnant Women; Design for Elderly; Designer Tools; Human-Machine Interfaces; Knowledge Management Tools; Business and Industry Working Practices; Knowledge Acquisition; Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Databases; Data Mining; Information Systems; Electronic Communication; Natural Language Processing; E-commerce and E-business; Systems Performance and Measurement; Cost Effectiveness of IT Systems; Project Management; Organisational learning; Organisational culture; Accessibility and Usability of Systems.
Design School
Design Education Research including Modelling and designing, Design and science teacher education.
Design Ergonomics including the use of Digital Human Modelling in the design and assessment of vehicles and workstations, Workplace Health and Safety design and assessment, Inclusive design, Human Machine Interface design, Web based interaction design.
Transport Safety Research including Vehicle Safety systems, Field Operational Tests, Intelligent Transport Systems, Infrastructure safety, Eco-driving systems, Injury prevention and mitigation, Health impacts, Monitored driving for insurance purposes.
Design Practice including Digital Modelling, Emerging Technologies, User-based Product Development and Design Process Improvement.
Environmental Ergonomics including human responses to different conditions of heat, noise, vibration, light and physical workload.
Sustainable Design including packaging, electronics and electrical, vehicles, public services, and textiles and clothing, Products, services and systems, Design for Sustainable Behaviour and Design for Happiness, Development of methods and tools for sustainable design, responsible design, ecodesign, carbon footprinting of design concepts and product end of life, Integrating ethical, social, and environmental issues into sustainable design education.
User Centred Design including the understanding of users’ needs, wants and aspirations concerning products, services, equipment and environments.
Electronic, Electrical and Systems Engineering
Communications including: antennas, bio-acoustics, biomedical electronics, computer networks, microwave measurements, mobile communications, signal processing and wireless communications.
Energy including renewable energy systems, solar and wind energy engineering, modelling, characterisation and condition monitoring of photovoltaic and wind turbine systems, integration of renewable energy into electricity networks; low-temperature gas plasmas and their biomedical applications, plasma surface modification; pulsed power engineering, the production, conditioning and utilisation of large pulses of energy.
Systems including: integration of complex systems, systems of systems, network enablement of capabilities, modelling and simulation (including multiscale and complex adaptive systems), human performance evaluation and simulation, autonomous systems, health informatics and biomedical engineering, model driven architecture, engineering for enduring capability.
English and Drama
English: Post-medieval literature in English and American Literature and Film, plus certain areas of linguistics.
Drama: Practical, textual, theoretical and historical research in most areas of theatre and performance studies.
Geography
Human Geography including Urban planning and design and environmental management, Identity, Governance and Society, Globalisation and World Cities co-operation and competition.
Physical Geography including Hydrological and Ecosystem Science and Alpine and Polar Research. Sedimentary processes and modelling, environmental problems in lakes and estuaries, terrestrial ecosystems, Arctic environments and processes.
Information Science
Legal and policy issues including copyright and preservation; scholarly communication and electronic publishing; information and knowledge management; and health and social informatics.
Preservation Management, Management of Information and Library Services, Information
Policy, Law & Ethics, Information Organisation and Retrieval and Information and Knowledge Management.
People Centred Design and Capability Building, Scholarly Communications, E-society, Publishing, Computer Games and Virtual Worlds.
Materials
Energy Materials including: Materials modelling and characterisation, and the development of tools for the lifing of high efficiency, low CO2, existing and future conventional power plant for sustainable generation; Photovoltaic cells; Ceramic materials for fuel cell applications.
Nano Materials including: Processing and characterisation of polymer nanocomposites and high temperature polymer nanocomposites; Nanostructured ceramics; Polymer nanocomposites for light weight armour; Nanostructured material coatings; Fabrication of functionalised graphene in large scale; Graphene-based nanostructured films for energy storage.
Sustainability including: the development of Novel Materials with a Reduced Carbon Footprint; the Replacement of Toxic Materials (such as Heavy Metals); the Development of New Materials for More Environmentally Friendly Ways of Generating Electricity and the Extension of the Life-time of Materials.
Surface Engineering including: Electrodeposition (electroplating); Anodising; Hot dipping and thermal spraying; CVD and PVD coatings; Organic coating technologies; Electrodeposition based on non-aqueous ionic liquid electrolytes; Mechanisms for mitigating tin and zinc whisker growth in electronics; Surface modifying processes for adhesive bonding; Creating surfaces characterised by their abhesive qualities; Environmentally friendly anodising processes for light metals; Co-depositing nano-particles into metallic and organic coatings.
Processing including: developing new, lower cost process routes for existing materials; creating routes to entirely new materials; processing of metals, ceramics, polymers and natural materials.
Mathematics
Dynamical systems including Hamiltonian and dissipative dynamics, adiabatic invariants and bifurcation theory. Applications include problems of celestial mechanics, rigid body dynamics, plasma physics, semi-classical methods, hydrodynamics, atomic physics, and the dynamics of chemical reactions.
Geometry and mathematical physics
Global analysis and PDEs
Linear and nonlinear waves
Mathematics Education
Pedagogy: Approaches to teaching and their development; Backwash effects of summative assessment; Communities of inquiry in teacher education and teaching development; Development and evaluation of mathematics and statistics support activities; Development of novel technology-enhanced learning approaches; Development of strategies to enthuse school-level mathematics students; Social, cultural and historical issues in the teaching and learning of mathematics; Teachers’ beliefs and knowledge; Theories of learning and their relevance to teaching.
Mathematical Cognition: Developmental trajectories of numerical understanding; Dyscalculia and mathematics disorder; Equality and equivalences relations; Early algebra; Logical reasoning; Proof and argumentation; Mathematical reading; The ‘Approximate Number System’ and symbolic mathematics; Use of examples and definitions in mathematical reasoning.
Physics
Novel materials including: Investigation of manganites, nickelates, ruthenates and Invar; Theoretical description of orbital liquids, magnetopolarons and magnetoresistance in manganites and ruthenates; Electronic phase separation: Novel theory of colossal magnetoresistance (CMR) in ferromagnetic oxides; Modification of the de Haas-van Alphen and Shubnikov-de Haas magnetic oscillations; Polarised neutron scattering to resolve complex magnetic structures in Invar and other spin-Peierls materials; The ferromagnetic shape memory compound Ni2MnGa.
Polarons, superconductivity and molecular electronics including: An electron moving through a solid impeded by its interaction with lattice vibrations and the resulting quasiparticle, the polaron; A novel continuous-time Monte-Carlo technique allowing for polaron and bipolaron simulations leading to the prediction of superlight lattice bipolarons; Bose condensation of these bipolarons as a proposed mechanism for high-temperature superconductivity; Flux cloning and vortex nucleation in small superconductors; Polaronic strings, stripes and electronic phase separation; Intrinsic molecular switching mechanism for new molecular technologies in the computing industries.
Terahertz superconducting and semiconducting electronics including: THz imaging; Spectroscopy; Tomography; Medical diagnosis; Health monitoring, Environmental control; Chemical and biological identification; Nanostructure-based THz electronics for application in ultra-high bandwidth wireless communication networks, vehicle control, atmospheric pollution monitoring, inter-satellite communication and spectroscopy.
Quantum computing including: The principles of adiabatic quantum computing; Josephson-based quantum computing architectures
Spintronics including: The control and the use of spin degrees of freedom; The fundamentals of the development of spin electronic devices; The possibility of injecting spin polarised currents
Materials and Structures including: Polymer deformation; Internal stress measurement; Musical acoustics
Biophysics including: Cardiovascular dynamics; Neural networks; Drug delivery physics; Population dynamics; Psychoacoustics.
Econophysics including: stability of financial markets, prediction of financial crashes, money and income distributions.
Politics, History and International Relations
European Union and area studies including: international relations of the European Union; policy-making in the EU and its member states.
International Relations including: intelligence; security studies.
Modern history including: modern Austrian, British and German history
Politics and Political Theory including: contemporary political theory with interests in gender; multiculturalism; democratic theory; the study of anarchism.
Social Sciences
Children and Families including: Safeguarding and Promoting the Wellbeing of Children in Need; Transitions from Care to Adulthood and Exploring Costs and Outcomes of Children’s Services.
Communication including: popular culture and cultural history; identity, difference and racism; political communication; sensory knowledge & practices; social exclusion and inequality; media and religion; cultural economies and media industries; political and nationalist discourse; discursive psychology, gender and sexuality; membership categorization analysis; conversation analysis; identities and social categories; memory, emotion and facts.
Social Policy including: children, youth and the life-course; equality, diversity and citizenship; health, social care and wellbeing; Poverty and Social Exclusion; Work and Welfare
Criminology including: crime prevention; policing, drug policy, and the criminal justice system.
Cultural and Media Analysis including: citizenship and cultural identities; cultural histories and media; cultural transitions in Asia; global flows and formations; language, discourse and journalism; media and cultural industries; media and religion; political communication.
Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences
Behavioural Medicine including nutrition, appetite control and eating behaviour in relation to obesity, activity-nutrition interactions and eating disorders; aspects of human sleep in relation to sleep function, sleep deprivation and sleep disorders; the determinants, outcomes and behaviour change strategies for sedentary (sitting) behaviours; and optimisation of physical activity strategies for health in all age groups, including the measurement of active and sedentary behaviour.
Biomedical Sciences including: human population biology with a common focus on maternal and child health, human growth and development, and cognitive performance across the lifespan; advancing the evidence base that exercise has a profound effect on the immune system in both elite athletes and those suffering from chronic disease; and increasing our understanding of the cognitive and emotional processes that affect eating behaviours.
Sport Science including the effect of nutrition and training on performance and recovery from sport; the impact of high training volumes on the immune system; the biomechanics and motor control of elite sporting performance; talent identification and development; interactions between sport, exercise and eating disorders; and the impact of sport and exercise on bone health, cognition, muscle function.
Social Science and Sport
Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering
Dynamics including: analytical, numerical and experimental techniques, improving and developing the prospective advanced technologies on the basis of the realisation of nonlinear phenomena with the use of smart structures and mechatronic systems. These include a step change in the understanding of new emerging areas in nano-technology and micro-engineering.
Healthcare Engineering including: maxillofacial rehabilitation; manufacturing for cell and tissue based products; direct control of size and morphology in pharmaceutical crystallisers; synthesis of biodegradable scaffolds for tissue engineering.
Optical Engineering including: modern optics and laser technology; Laser Vibrometry; Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV); T.V. Holography.
Manufacturing Engineering including: Electronics Production; Sustainable Manufacturing; Additive Manufacturing; Intelligent Automation; Sports Technology; Regenerative Medicine Mechanics of Advanced Materials including: Computational mechanics and micromechanics of microstructured materials; Multi-scale analysis of damage and failure evolution in advanced engineering materials; Effect of in-service loading and environmental conditions on performance of components and structures; Effect of microstructure on effective properties and performance of advanced engineering materials; Mechanics of advanced materials under vibro-impact loading.
Sports Technology including: design, simulation, testing and manufacture of sporting goods including athletic footwear, technical apparel, protective equipment, balls, bats,clubs, rackets and fitness equipment.
Competitive Sustainable Manufacturing including: life cycle assessment, sustainable product design, energy, water and material (resource) efficiency, sustainable value chain creation, and product recovery and recycling technologies; including the renowned Centre for Sustainable Manufacturing And Reuse/Recycling Technologies (SMART)
Thermofluids including: fluid dynamics; heat transfer; combustion; auto propulsion; laser diagnostics and powertrains with a strong emphasis on the application of computational modelling and advanced optical diagnostic methods.