Motivating engineering research in universities with limited or tight research budgets is a challenging task. There is always a conflict between researchers attempting to secure enough funds to ease their own research, and funding bodies and universities trying to achieve high quality research while lowering research expenses. This conflict leads to a situation where universities and researchers cannot achieve their goals altogether. This study attempts to partially resolve this issue by optimizing research expenditure for the benefit of both universities and researchers and suggests some policies regarding what type of research (modelling based or experimental based) universities should support. Other factors related to the components of research expenditure (effect of local and international collaboration, hiring research assistants (RAs), establishing research laboratories, and buying professional engineering software) are also considered.