Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) (BE (Hons))

The UQ Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) (BE (Hons)) offers Queensland’s largest choices of engineering study areas, a flexible first year for students who haven’t decided and wish to defer choice of an engineering specialisation to second year, excellent employment opportunities strengthened by UQ’s world-class reputation, award-winning lecturers, degree programs and researchers, hands-on experience and strong links to industry and world leading research combined with advanced theoretical knowledge and practical skills to meet industry needs

Chemical Engineering specialisation & majors:

Chemical Engineering

Develop your technical skills through a core specialisation in chemical engineering, which will form the basis of your career. Chemical engineers invent, design, and manage products and processes that transform raw materials into valuable products using the latest knowledge of biology, chemistry and physics to ensure minimum loss of materials and consumption of energy.

You’ll also have the option to complement your chemical engineering specialisation with a major or minor in one of the new and emerging areas of engineering. Our broad range of majors allows you to further tailor your studies to match your career aspirations and deep dive into your interests.

Chemical & Biomedical Engineering

Chemical engineers with a major in biomedical engineering look at how we can engineer materials, devices and processes to deliver therapeutics. Applications range from nanoparticles for precise delivery of medicines, bioprinted patient-specific tissues and organs, devices to detect and treat illnesses before they impact our health, and the large scale manufacture of immune cells to fight cancer or cardiac cells to treat a broken heart.

Chemical & Bioprocess Engineering

Bioprocess engineers create processes and products that support the development of a healthy and sustainable world. Bioprocess engineering combines the core principles of chemical engineering and biology for scalable production of medicines, such as vaccines during pandemics, foods, and beverages.

Chemical & Environmental Engineering

Chemical & Environmental engineers are accredited chemical engineers, with additional technical skills in the areas of waste management and resource recovery, water treatment and sustainable energy systems. They have the skills and knowledge required to implement cleaner production, and to rigorously assess the long-term impacts of proposed products, processes and developments including an understanding of key global challenges, the causes of these problems and barriers to the uptake of technical solutions.

Chemical & Materials Engineering

Materials engineers apply their knowledge of materials behaviour to optimise processing and improve the properties of products. They are also involved in controlling the service behaviour of materials; improving the performance of machines and structures.

Chemical & Metallurgical Engineering 

Metallurgical engineers play a key role in ensuring the sustainability of our modern society. Everything in our material world, even our major energy sources, are derived from minerals or recycled materials.

For a full list of Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) specialisations & majors, see UQ Future Students


Bachelor of Engineering (Honours)/Master of Engineering (BE/ME)

The Bachelor of Engineering and Master of Engineering (BE/ME) is the first five-year engineering degree in Australia to integrate a semester industry or research placement into a degree with Master’s level course work. This unique combination in an undergraduate degree will provide graduates with world-class knowledge and skills in their field of study as well as an enhanced ability to work in multi-disciplinary teams and across fields.

Chemical Engineering fields of study:

Chemical Engineering

Chemical engineers invent, design, and manage products and processes that transform raw materials into valuable products using the latest knowledge of biology, chemistry and physics to ensure minimum loss of materials and consumption of energy. The BE/ME in Chemical Engineering builds on the project centred curriculum in the first three years of the BE(Hons) and gives students advanced skills and employment outcomes.

Chemical & Biomedical Engineering

Biomedical engineering bridges the gap between technology, medicine and biology. It integrates physical, chemical, mathematical and computational sciences and engineering principles with the ultimate aim of improving health care.

Chemical & Bioprocess Engineering

Combine engineering with science to develop new drug therapies, synthetic molecules and devices for medical, environmental and industrial applications. This involves learning how to engineer living cells to produce a product, and how to design and optimise bioprocesses to manufacture bioproducts on a large scale.

Chemical & Environmental Engineering

Chemical & Environmental engineers are accredited chemical engineers, with additional technical skills in the areas of waste management and resource recovery, water treatment and sustainable energy systems. They have the skills and knowledge required to implement cleaner production, and to rigorously assess the long-term impacts of proposed products, processes and developments including an understanding of key global challenges, the causes of these problems and barriers to the uptake of technical solutions.

Chemical & Materials Engineering

Materials engineers apply their knowledge of materials behaviour to optimise processing and improve the properties of products. The BE/ME in Chemical & Materials Engineering builds on the project centred curriculum in the first three years of the BE to put students closer to the cutting edge of knowledge and technology in fields which are important to chemical and materials research and industry.

Chemical & Metallurgical Engineering

The BE(Hons)/ME in Chemical & Metallurgical Engineering builds on the project centred curriculum in the first three years of the BE(Hons), with the final 2 years built around a placement semester to give students an advantage for employment in Australia's resources sector whilst maintaining employment options in other industries.

For a full list of Bachelor of Engineering (Honours)/Master of Engineering fields of study, see UQ Future Students.