Engineering at Oxford is the responsibility of a single unified Department, which is engaged in teaching and research in most branches of the subject and has strong links with other scientific disciplines (especially computing and materials science) and with economics, management studies and medicine. The undergraduate intake is in the range of 170-180 per year, all of who take 4-year courses, and there are approximately 180 research students. The Department has 62 academic staff (19 Professors, 7 Readers, 30 University Lecturers and 6 Departmental Lecturers) and there are 4 Visiting Professors of Engineering Design supported by the Royal Academy of Engineering. 25 departmental Research and Teaching Support staff assist in projects, design, student laboratories and computing. There are also 110 technicians and clerical staff. The Department occupies well-equipped laboratories (spread over several buildings) and workshops with a total floor area of 12,000 square metres. Research is particularly strong: there are many research grants and contracts - from a variety of sources - having a total value of some £19M and which fund about 100 research staff. The Department has been rated grade 5 in all previous research assessment exercises (RAE).

In the latest 1996 RAE the Department was graded 5*(A) - 'research quality that equates to attainable levels of international excellence in a majority of sub-areas of activity and attainable levels of national excellence in all others'. In 1997 it was rated 23 out of a maximum 24 in the Teaching Quality Assessment (TQA) and accredited at MEng level by the Institutions of Chemical, Civil, Electrical, and Mechanical Engineering, the Institute of Measurement and Control, the Institute of Materials and the British Computing Society.

Research on offshore structures is primarily carried out within two groups within the Department: the Ocean Engineering and Dynamics Group, and the Civil Engineering Group. The ethos of the Department strongly encourages close collaboration between groups on a project-by-project basis. There are thus several joint projects between the two groups, which have the main involvement in offshore structures and others involved in information engineering, signal processing and fluid mechanics, for example.

This project will be based in the Ocean Engineering and Dynamics Group, comprising around 15 research personnel. Activities within the Group include Dynamics of Fixed and Floating Structures; Statistics of the Marine Environment; Wave Kinematics, Numerical Hydrodynamics; Computational Fluid Dynamics; Coastal Engineering.

The Group has been engaged in several Managed Programmes in marine technology, and has provided the technical leadership and co-ordination for national research programmes including those on Floating Production Systems and on Uncertainties in Loads on Offshore Structures. These were jointly funded by government and industry, and involved 8-10 universities. The Group enjoys good relations with the offshore industry, and aims to disseminate the results of its research activities through a balanced combination of direct industrial links, organisation of Workshops and courses, and publication in the leading scientific journals and international conferences. The Group is currently a member of MARNET-CFD.