CHAPEL HILL (June 3, 2026) – North Carolina needs more engineers. It’s that simple.
In the accompanying video, UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Lee Roberts makes the case for why Carolina plans to build its engineering programs – not to infringe on other engineering schools in the UNC System, but to build on programs it already has.
He notes that the UNC System recently released a report that projects North Carolina’s workforce needs.
“And that report showed a gap of 2,600 engineering degrees a year between what the UNC System is producing across the board and what North Carolina’s workforce needs.1 And that’s in a state that’s growing by 3 to 5% a year.
“The gap is only going to grow. So we have very strong demand for engineering degrees here at Carolina and across the UNC System,” he says.
“We have some very strong engineering programs now – biomedical engineering, data science, environmental engineering, applied physical sciences. So we’d like to increase the capacity of those existing programs and add to them over time,” Roberts says.
UNC-Chapel Hill already has at least 170 professors teaching engineering disciplines.2
ROBERTS CITES the field of pharmacoengineering – which was listed as a goal in a UNC System strategic plan as early as 20173 – as an example.
“We have the only pharmacy school in the System,” he says. “There’s huge demand for these degrees. Would love to add a pharmacoengineering program to meet that demand.”
With the explosion of biotech companies in the state – in the Triangle, sure, but also in places like Wilmington, Sanford and Wilson – who could argue with that?
“So we’re going to continue to build out our engineering capabilities, both by adding new programs and by expanding the capacity of our existing ones,” Roberts says.
1 https://www.northcarolina.edu/apps/bog/doc.php?id=68692&code=bog, p. 35.
2 https://publicedworks.org/2024/10/roberts-we-need-more-engineers/.
3 https://www.northcarolina.edu/wp-content/uploads/reports-and-documents/strategic-plan/unc_strategic_plan.pdf, p. 30.
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