Chemical Engineering Research

 We aim to be Australia's premier research school in chemical engineering and a  world leader in a number of identified research strengths.

In 2001, we graduated 25 PhD students, one of the highest figures for any chemical engineering division in the world. Staff were successful in 17 competitive ARC grants worth $5 million to start in 2002. These included 9 ARC linkage grants which represent 25% of the total for the University of Queensland.

Two key paradigms pervade much of the research:

• The development of new high value products where structure at the microscopic scale is as important as chemical composition in determining product attributes.

• An integrated multi-scale approach to research from molecular scale to global scale eg. in the development of function-structure-property relationships for new materials, and in the integration of environmental engineering strategies for sustainable development.

Chemical Engineering has a number of research centres and groups under three areas of research strength:

Staff at Chemical Engineering at UQ have received many awards for outstanding research achievements. Examples of recent awards to staff are listed below.

• Lars Nielsen (Research Excellence award 2000)

• Peter Halley and Rulande Rutgers (CRC Associate Commercialisation Award, 2002)

• Paul Lant (Research Supervision excellence award 2000)

• Max Lu (Le Farve award 2002)

The University of Queensland (UQ) is one of Australia's premier learning and research institutions. It is the largest and oldest university in Queensland and has produced generations of graduates who have gone on to become leaders in all areas of society and industry. The University is a founding member of the national Group of Eight, an alliance of research-strong "sandstone" universities committed to ensuring that Australia has higher education institutions which are genuinely world class. It belongs also to the global Universitas 21 alliance. This group aims to enhance the quality of university outcomes through international benchmarking and a joint venture e-learning project with The Thomson Corporation.

In 2002, The University of Queensland had more than 30,000 students enrolled. It continues to attract the vast majority of the state's highest academic achievers and is renowned nationally and internationally for the quality of its teaching and research. In 1998-99 it was named Australia's University of the Year and it continues to enjoy the highest overall rating for Queensland universities in the annual Good Universities Guide.