By Rhiannon Potkey.
In another sign of its growth and upward trajectory, the Tickle College of Engineering reached a major milestone for annual research and development expenditures that puts TCE in an elite tier.
TCE crossed the $100 million mark for the first time with $104.1 million in R&D expenditures in fiscal year 2023 as calculated internally, a 12 percent increase over the past three years. The fundamental and translational research performed daily establishes TCE as one of the top engineering schools in the country.
“Crossing over $100M in research expenditures puts the Tickle College of Engineering among the top tier of engineering programs across the country, and it is a milestone we have aimed at for some time now,” said Matthew Mench, dean and Wayne T. Davis Dean’s Chair.
In the accounting used by the National Science Foundation’s Higher Education Research and Development (HERD), TCE crossed the $100M threshold in 2021 and now stands at $112M for FY23. Combined, these financial benchmarks show the continued growth of TCE.
R&D expenditures are a strong indicator of the potential worth of proposed research because federal dollars, which constitute the largest share of external funding, are awarded through a competitive process involving peer review.
The R&D milestone is meaningful not only because of the prestige of receiving such a high level of funding, but because of how the money is being used. Across all departments in TCE, students and faculty are producing important outcomes from their research that can have great societal and practical impacts.
The college has never been in a better position. We have set record after record in research expenditures, enrollment, student success, intellectual property development, and other areas with over 30 new faculty coming in the next two years to our existing programs. I have never been more excited for the future of the Tickle College of Engineering.”
They are helping build better roads, repurpose batteries, enhance artificial intelligence, safeguard passwords, and produce clean energy sources. Their work is being published in journals, presented at national conferences, and featured in the news media. They’ve formed startup companies, built prototypes, and obtained patents.
TCE faculty was awarded funding for 117 new research projects in 2023, a 32 percent increase from the previous year. The number of patents issued is up 27 percent over the last three years.
TCE has a diversified funding portfolio of more than 20 sources. The increase in research funding from the Department of Defense has grown from 7 percent in 2017 to 20.5 percent in 2023. The Department of Energy (18.7) and NSF (12.1) remain large sources of funding as well.
The R&D milestone is one of several areas of growth for TCE. The college is on track to have more than 200 faculty for the first time in 2024 compared to 159 in 2021. Despite a national trend of declining enrollment in traditional four-year engineering programs, TCE now has more than 5,000 students enrolled in programs, an increase of 13.2 percent since 2021. In the last three years, the undergraduate and graduate degrees granted are up 13 percent.
TCE will soon be launching two new departments (Department of Applied Engineering and Technology and Department of Biomedical Engineering) and two new degree programs (bachelor of science in environmental engineering and a doctor of engineering program for industrial and system engineering) as well as introducing a minor in nuclear engineering.
“The college has never been in a better position. We have set record after record in research expenditures, enrollment, student success, intellectual property development, and other areas with over 30 new faculty coming in the next two years to our existing programs.” Mench said. “I have never been more excited for the future of the Tickle College of Engineering.”
TCE Milestones
