The School of Engineering has a wide range of research interests, with much of its research activity spanning the three disciplines within the School. The research conducted within the School is highly diverse, includes biomedical tissue engineering, mathematical modelling and experimental measurement-based work. Much of the work is collaborative with other Schools in College and with national and international partners. Several research groups are recognised as international leaders in their fields; these groups are active in areas such as biomedical engineering; digital media; energy, transport and the environment; and telecommunications.

There are currently three research centres located within the School; the Trinity Centre for Biomedical Engineering (TCBE) which forms part of the SFI centre for Advanced Materials and Bioengineering Research (AMBER); the Centre for Transport Research and Innovation (TRIP) and; TrinityHaus. Staff from the School of Engineering also contribute significantly to the Trinity Consortium on Ageing and national SFI centres, including CONNECT (Centre for Future Networks and Communications) and ADAPT (Centre for Next Generation Digital Technologies). The School also has funded investigators in CURAM (Centre for next Generation Medical Devices) and I-FORM  (Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre).

External funding for research derives from a wide range of sources, including the European Research Council and the EU framework programmes, Science Foundation Ireland, Health Research Board, Enterprise Ireland, Irish Research Council and the Environmental Protection Agency. Within the School of Engineering, there are approximately 60 full-time postdoctoral fellows and over 120 graduate research students currently involved in research. Collectively, staff have published over 2,000 academic research papers in the past five years in international, peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings.

The School has been increasing its rate of publication in high impact journals in recent years and this trend is expected to continue and increase. A number of academic staff act as editors or on the editorial boards of international, peer-reviewed journals and several contribute to the organisation of international conferences or to the assessment of research in other academic institutions and of research grant applications.

With an annual research income of over €10m, the School is the most successful in the country, as is recognised by its ranking in the world’s top 150.