About the school

Find out more about the school and the different disciplines it covers.

On

School information

Formed in 2024, the School of Chemical, Materials and Biological Engineering (CMBE) is based in the Sir Robert Hadfield Building. The school formed when the Departments of Chemical and Biological Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering were amalgamated. The new school also incorporated learning and teaching from Biomedical Engineering and the Science and Engineering Foundation Year.

The new school is a powerhouse of research, learning and teaching looking to address some of the grand challenges that affect society and the world around us including climate change, energy poverty, energy storage, affordable medicine, sustainable agriculture, novel materials and green manufacturing.


Chemical and Biological Engineering

Modern society relies on the work of chemical, biochemical and process engineers - they help manage resources, protect the environment and control health and safety procedures, while developing the processes that make the products we desire or depend on.

More about chemical and biological engineering

What is chemical engineering?


Materials Science and Engineering

To make any engineered device, structure or product, you need the right materials. Materials science teaches us what things are made of and why they behave as they do. Materials engineering shows us how to apply knowledge to make better things and to make things better.

More about materials science and engineering

What is materials science and engineering?


Biomedical Engineering

Where engineering meets medicine. Working with doctors, clinicians and researchers, biomedical engineers use traditional engineering principles and techniques and apply them to real-world biological and medical problems.

More about biomedical engineering


Experience a range of Engineering disciplines - General Engineering and the Science and Engineering Foundation Year.

We take an interdisciplinary approach to learning and teaching, so that our students work with a range of disciplines as they would in industry. These opportunities for collaboration extend across wide-ranging subjects within the School but also across the whole of Engineering and Computer Science:

  • Our Science and Engineering Foundation Year (SEFY) provides a grounding for students who need an extra year of study to progress onto our degrees, including a choice of subjects from across the Faculty of Engineering and Faculty of Science
  • Our General Engineering course is for students who want to study a wide range of engineering disciplines. You will be taught by experts from across all four of our schools in the Faculty of Engineering, giving you the skills and knowledge to shape your future career path

The Diamond Building is the heart of our collaborative approach, providing teaching spaces and specialist laboratories for students from all our courses to work together on practical learning

A global reputation

Sheffield is a research university with a global reputation for excellence. We're a member of the Russell Group: one of the 24 leading UK universities for research and teaching.