Research

The Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment is at the forefront of creating wealth by providing society with well-educated, entrepreneurial graduates in engineering and built environment programmes.

The Faculty maintains strong links with industry in the form of student bursaries, scholarships and internships, and has the highest number of endowed professorships or chairs in the University. Large numbers of contract research is conducted for local and international companies.

Engineering has high calibre academic and support staff, purpose built laboratories, and computing and library facilities which enable us to provide the opportunity for advanced skilling in specialist areas and training in cutting edge research. The variety and quality of the postgraduate qualifications in Engineering ensure that capable and committed students, with good first degrees, can equip themselves for leadership roles in technology and related fields. A wide range of postgraduate studies are available in the School of Architecture and Planning and the School of Construction Economics and Management. The delivery of affordable housing and other highly relevant social and physical challenges form the basis of the teaching and research programmes.

Issues that pertain to townships, informal settlements, metropolitan systems and provincial policies are at the heart of a number of student projects issues relevant to the South African context and climate but drawing on internationally accepted disciplinary principles. Doctoral studies range from a gender-orientated analysis of urban homelessness (the first study of its kind), to an examination of indigenous construction techniques and a treatise on early Cape architecture.