In October 2001, with approvals of the NIEE Board of Directors and the Texas Tech University Board of Regents, the Presidents of NIEE and TTU signed an agreement for Texas Tech University (TTU) to provide a permanent home and assume financial, administrative, management and leadership responsibilities of the Institute..

Viewed as a cooperative effort among many engineering organizations with potential for far-reaching influence and impact, NIEE can and should bridge the various disciplines within the engineering profession.

University Commitment to NIEE: In order to assure the success of NIEE, in 2001, Texas Tech President and Engineering Dean jointly made a five-year commitment of major funding for NIEE operating and development efforts. Recently, in 2005, Texas Tech Provost William Marcy extended and significantly increased the university committment and made it more permanent. This recent committment is to encourage and support engineering ethics by providing funds to hire a full time director of NIEE. This position is part of the university Quality Enhancement Plan.

Mission and Purpose: The name shall remain the National Institute for Engineering Ethics (also known as the Institute) and it will remain a recognizable entity with an unchanged purpose within the non-profit status of the University. The mission and purpose of NIEE remains unchanged with this transition, but the Institute has changed from a “dues-paying membership type” organization to a “ethics programs and projects type” organization where individuals, companies, universities, and engineering societies can support projects that they view important to the profession, with either time or funding or both.

Principal thrusts of NIEE: The principal thrusts of NIEE are education, communication, program and project development, and practice applications in the area of engineering ethics. A primary role of the Institute is to encourage cooperation among individuals, universities, professional and technical societies and business organizations with regard to engineering ethics and professionalism issues.

NIEE owns and markets the highly successful engineering ethics video, "Gilbane Gold" which has been used at most engineering colleges in the nation as well as in industry and society presentations. It is available on this website under Products and Services. NIEE has produced a new (2003) engineering ethics video entitled "Incident at Morales" which is also available on this website under Products and Services. This second video was produced with major support from the National Science Foundation and with $80,000 in private funding. Other activities of NIEE include a transition of the Ethics Case of the Month Club to NIEE, co-sponsorship of the On-Line Ethics Center Help Line, publishing an Ethics Resource Guide and newsletter Engineering Ethics Update, and sponsoring, developing, and implementing engineering ethics workshops, seminars and symposia.