The Chief of Defence Force Honours Program in Engineering offers the opportunity for students entering UNSW Canberra with a high Entrance Rank, and who maintain a high level of performance in their studies, to undertake research in a range of disciplines that will develop their critical thinking and independent research skills beyond that available in the standard Engineering program.

In Year 1 of the program students will be engaged with cohort activities so as to develop and maintain their interest and continuing involvement in the program via invited lectures, seminars, general reading and social events.

Commencing in Year 2, the research projects, each offered as separate courses, will be supervised by academic staff from the same or closely related discipline. Students in the research courses may work independently or as part of a team, depending on the nature of the project undertaken, though all students will submit individual assessment. Final assessment, due by the end of semester, will be based on a written paper and an oral presentation.

The Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) (CDF) in Electrical Engineering is built on a foundation of mathematics, computing science and physical science. The program is specifically designed for undergraduate students who have shown academic excellence in their studies and it incorporates significant elements of training in research methods at all years of the program. A small component of electrical engineering is introduced in the first year, with progressively larger components in second and third year. The final year is almost exclusively devoted to electrical engineering courses. Each year of the program comprises a number of discipline-based courses, courses taught by other discipline areas and problem-based learning courses.

Electrical Engineering is one of the newer branches of engineering. It has its origin in the turning to practical use of the discoveries of Faraday, Ampere, Maxwell and a number of other eminent 19th century physicists. It has remained the most strongly science-oriented branch of engineering. At first it had its major impact by providing the means for the generation, distribution and utilisation of electric power. However, while this remains an important sub-area of the whole discipline, the last few decades particularly have seen a rapid and extensive diversification into the fields of computers and control as well as electronics and communications, and beyond them into such areas as biology, medicine and space technology. It is now true to say that there are very few areas of civilised activity that have remained untouched by the ideas and products of modern electrical engineering. The absorption of recent scientific development has been very rapid and has demanded a fully developed scientific outlook on the part of electrical engineers for a proper understanding of the problems involved. Many devices, scarcely more than laboratory prototypes a decade ago, are now in widespread use as fully engineered hardware.

The Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) (CDF) in Electrical Engineering has program objectives and learning outcomes in common with the standard Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) in Electrical Engineering program. The program extends the educational principles embodied in the Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) in Electrical Engineering) to a higher level of the degree. In the program, students will be exposed in first year to research methods in Engineering and will be offered significant extensions to the ideas and analysis performed in the standard degree program. This will allow them to undertake research projects, at the appropriate level, in their later years, thereby, more fully integrating research into the standard coursework undergraduate degree. The individual projects undertaken in close association with academic staff on research topics of mutual interest underpin the program and give the students the ability to develop their full potential.