Developments in 2002 saw a major revision of undergraduate degree courses in the School for implementation in 2003 and beyond. The University has approved the revision. The revision produced greater commonality across all undergraduate courses within the School, and produced fewer subjects per year and fewer contact hours per week than the existing equivalent courses. The courses were restructured to have common first two years across all courses within the School providing basic skills and specialist disciplinary skills in the higher years. The common first two years will be implemented in 2003.

In addition, two new courses, Robotic Engineering and Computational Engineering were developed and approved by the University for implementation in 2003.

Significant achievements by staff include:

• An Australian Research Council Linkage Grant worth $90,000 over three years from 2003 was awarded to Associate Professor Chris Perera to carry out research on "Multi-objective optimal operation of urban water supply systems".

   

• Dr Paul Clancy of the School together with Professor Ian Thomas and Dr. Ian Bennetts of CESARE were awarded an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant to carry out research on "An integrated systems analysis: fire growth and severity in enclosures". The grant was $85,000 for 2003.

   

• A further $200,000 was secured by Associate Professor Michael Sek and Mr. Vincent Rouillard from HAC Technologies for the ongoing research project on "Alternative Fuels". Over the last two years, the project has attracted over $500,000.

   

• Associate Professor Graham Thorpe with Deakin University secured $1.5M for Mobile Architecture and Built Environment Laboratory (MABEL), of which $100,000 was allocated to the School.

   

• A/Prof Michael Sek and Mr. Vincent Rouillard in collaboration with Micor Packaging and Vision Systems received the Silver Award in Asia Pacific Packaging Magazine Industrial Packaging Award (Packaging Council of Australia) for the most outstanding technical achievement of industrial packaging.

   

• IEAust recognized Mr. Ian Campbell's achievements as a pioneer in engineering education by awarding him the High Commendation Award for Excellence in Engineering Education.
  Mr Greg Evans and Mr. Euan Nichol received the Vice-Chancellor's Citation for Team Teaching.

Proud achievements by students in 2002 include:

• A 12-member team of undergraduate students from the School won 8 out of 11 cash prizes and other sundry prizes at the Paddle Pop Bridge 2002 National Competition in Sydney ahead of teams from the University of Sydney, the University of New South Wales, the University of Queensland and Latrobe University. The competition was organised by IEAust, HIA NSW, State Forests of NSW and the Timber Development Association (NSW). Our School won a similar number of prizes at this competition in 2001.

   

• Three final year Civil Engineering students won the award for Most Innovative Design at the Concrete Bridge Competition organised by RMIT University, which was open to all Victorian Universities. Although this competition has been running for 6 years, this is the first year the School participated.
  A 7-member team of Civil Engineering students participated in VU/DEAKIN Employability Skills Fest organised by State Emergency Services and Australian Institute of Management. They came first in the Engineering section and runner-up overall. A similar team of Civil and Environmental students won the VU Employability Skills Fest in 2001.

   

• Seventy-three undergraduate students graduated during 2002, while another 21 graduated in Graduate Certificate / Graduate Diploma / Coursework Masters degrees.

   

• Four post graduate research students including 3 PhDs graduated in 2002.