Idea to Inauguration - founding a university in the UK ItoI draft V2.11.pdfPeter Goodhew Idea to Inauguration V2.11 5 Potential pull-out quotes: Sir James Dyson: The New Model in Technology

Peter Goodhew Idea to Inauguration V2.11 1

Idea to Inauguration - founding a university in the UK A short (hi)story by Peter Goodhew1

In my view the city should be focused on great local food, the creative arts, smarter and greener industries and focused higher education. In particular, I think a university for Hereford is absolutely

key" Jesse Norman MP - then parliamentary candidate, 11th March 2009

Preface The way we educate engineers is changing very rapidly, and the new institution NMiTE is at the forefront of that change. The story of how this young institution came into being is fascinating and important: It is not easy to create a place where innovation is normal, in an environment where regulation and expectations are long-established. The story – with its excitement, its frustrations and its achievements – needs to be told both for the historical record and for the benefit of others who will, I hope, be stimulated to undertake similar adventures in the future. The story told in this booklet is deliberately limited to the first ten years, from the emergence of the idea to the splendid inauguration ceremony in Hereford Cathedral in late 2018. I am sure that there will be an equally exciting story to be told in 2028 about the first ten years of operation. As its President I hope to be a big part of that story too. NMiTE’s students will work collaboratively in small groups, learning by working on real-world engineering problems set by real-world organisations, mentored by real-world engineers. I often tell potential students “you won’t come here to study engineering; you’ll come here to be an engineer.” That difference is important, and you will see where it comes from in Peter Goodhew’s story. I came here, first as Provost and then as President, to see this inspiring project through. I imagine that, a hundred years from now, NMiTE will be flourishing as a university, producing wonderful engineers. I don’t have children. This will be my legacy. This history describes the effort of the many visionary people who worked for ten years to enable me to be in such a privileged position. Elena Rodriguez-Falcon, President and CEO of NMiTE

1 Peter Goodhew CBE, FREng, Honorary Professor at NMiTE, [email protected]


Preamble Very rarely is a new university established without any precursor institution - essentially starting from a blank sheet of paper. In the UK it could be argued that only the University of Buckingham (opened 1976) and the New College of the Humanities (opened 2012) have been created from nothing since the big expansion of the 1960s which followed the 1963 Robbins Report. Since then the landscape of higher education in the UK has changed dramatically. It therefore seems both useful and interesting to reflect on how this has been done in the context of NMiTE – a totally new institution with aspirations to become a major university based in Hereford. In this paper I attempt to document that story while it is still fresh in the minds of the key players. What follows is my own analysis – factual inaccuracies are due to my inadequate research; questionable interpretations result from my limited intellectual grasp combined with my mischievous enjoyment of provoking debate. The story has two parallel components; developing the vision and making it a reality. Of course, there is overlap between these components, but I have divided the text into sections which broadly address these stories separately.

The potted history The idea for a modern university in Hereford came from Jesse Norman2 in 2008 during his successful campaign to be elected as MP for Hereford and South Herefordshire. A team of enthusiastic and able volunteers was assembled around David Sheppard and Karen Usher. Their team scoured the world for educational ideas, raised more than £1M to support the campaign, developed the concept of a radical university based on engineering and persuaded local and national government to support it. The institution, by then called NMiTE (New Model in Technology and Engineering), employed its first staff in 2017, took on a cohort of 25 young people as co-developers in 2018 and was formally inaugurated in Hereford Cathedral on Friday 19th October 2018. What follows is the story of those crucial ten years between idea and inauguration. A very brief timeline is included as Appendix 1. As an important caveat I must record that NMiTE is not at the time of writing a university: It awaits its own degree-awarding powers and is currently negotiating the validation of undergraduate degrees with the University of Warwick.

2 Short notes on individuals named in the text can be found in Appendix 7


Contents

Preface .................................................................................................................................................... 1

Preamble ............................................................................................................................................. 2

The potted history .............................................................................................................................. 2

Potential pull-out quotes: ....................................................................................................................... 5

Part 1: Developing the vision .................................................................................................................. 6

The NMiTE vision ................................................................................................................................ 6

Background ......................................................................................................................................... 6

The emergence of the idea ................................................................................................................. 7

Assembling the team .......................................................................................................................... 8

The Collaborators ................................................................................................................................ 9

Confirming and refining the ideas .................................................................................................... 10

Accelerated course ........................................................................................................................... 11

Gender balanced ............................................................................................................................... 11

No requirement for maths on entry ................................................................................................. 12

Liberal versus integrated .................................................................................................................. 12

Teamwork and cohort size ................................................................................................................ 13

Design Cohort.................................................................................................................................... 13

Choosing a name ............................................................................................................................... 14

Part 2: Making it happen....................................................................................................................... 16

Raising funds and making the project real........................................................................................ 16

Getting Hereford on side .................................................................................................................. 17

Persuading government .................................................................................................................... 19

Convincing the engineering profession ............................................................................................ 21

Developing a curriculum ................................................................................................................... 21

Attracting staff .................................................................................................................................. 23

The University of Warwick ................................................................................................................ 25

The Inauguration ............................................................................................................................... 25

Part 3: Themes which emerge .............................................................................................................. 26

What was needed ............................................................................................................................. 26

The outsider ...................................................................................................................................... 26

An idea whose time has come .......................................................................................................... 27

The strange absence of engineers .................................................................................................... 27

The next steps ................................................................................................................................... 28


Lessons which might be learned ....................................................................................................... 28

Concluding remarks .......................................................................................................................... 30

Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................... 30

References ............................................................................................................................................ 31

Appendices ............................................................................................................................................ 32

Appendix 1: Timeline ........................................................................................................................ 32

Appendix 2: Founders Fund members .............................................................................................. 33

Appendix 3: Trustees of HTET and NMiTE ........................................................................................ 34

Appendix 4: Principal Volunteers, among many others ................................................................... 34

Appendix 5: Universities surveyed and studied as innovators ......................................................... 35

Appendix 6: The network of contacts and consultees ...................................................................... 36

Appendix 7: Short biographies of those mentioned in the text. ...................................................... 37

Appendix 8: Abbreviations ................................................................................................................ 40

Appendix 9: NMiTE Declaration of Principles .................................................................................. 41

Index...................................................................................................................................................... 43


Potential pull-out quotes:

Sir James Dyson: “The New Model in Technology and Engineering (NMiTE) will be a hotbed for the

creation of multi-disciplinary engineers” [permission needed – direct quote from his letter to George

Osborne]

Rhys Morgan (Director of Education for the Royal Academy of Engineering): “Engineering matters. It

underpins our daily lives, drives economic growth, plays a critical role in addressing major societal

challenges and helps ensure our readiness for the future, from providing a sustainable supply of food,

water and clean energy, to advancing healthcare, and keeping us safe and secure. It necessarily

involves teams of men and women working on projects designed to improve the human condition”

[RM agreed]

Professor Mark Miodownik (Director of the Institute for Making at UCL): “The towering skyscrapers

of our cities and the most ordinary objects in our homes, from the tea-cup to the jet engine, from the

silicon chip to the paper clip, are designed and made by engineers. These engineers need to be

creative, caring, thoughtful and innovative – our society depends on them” [MM agreed]

Mike Cook (Director at Buro Happold): “It simply takes too long to translate a talented individual

from student to skilled creative engineer. These people are so vital to us that we need to accelerate

the process.” [MC agreed]

Chris Wise (Director of Expedition Engineering): “While it’s been argued that every human child is an

engineer at heart, professional engineering is fundamentally a collaborative activity. Because

engineering is defined by its projects, often physical, realised in products whose fundamental purpose

is to be used for the benefit of others, engineers have to work side-by-side in continuously morphing

teams. That’s how they develop the understanding to design and make something that will actually

work. Teams for projects on scales large and small, with members taken from anywhere on the

planet…..with developers, architects, artists, government organisations, fabricators, contractors,

environmental consultants, private clients and charities. The great challenge of this diverse mash-up

is to find a common purpose and a common language, through which insight emerges.” [CW agreed]

Richard Miller, President of Olin College: "No amount of emphasis on narrowly specialized courses

will produce the innovators we need” [RM agreed]


Part 1: Developing the vision

The NMiTE vision “Sometimes I’ve believed six impossible things before breakfast” the White Queen in Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll (1871) The vision, which evolved after about two years of discussions with literally hundreds of employers and educators, was radical. I will deal in more detail below with the development of the vision but simply outline it here. NMiTE would be focused on engineering but in a new way: It would present engineering as an integrated discipline which is intrinsically embedded in society and whose purpose is primarily to improve the human condition. It would be an experiment from which Hereford, the UK and the wider world would benefit, from its graduates but also from its methodologies and pedagogical innovations. In particular, it would be student-centred, with experiential learning as the norm and with close links to employers via a large number of projects. Its staff would not give lectures, and studying and learning would take place in short project-based “sprints” each suggested by an employer. Furthermore, traditional A-level mathematics and physics would not be requirements for entry, the study year would be 46 weeks long with no “long vacation”, there would be few – if any – conventional exams, and no degree classifications but the accumulation of a portfolio of achievements and a profile of skills. Perhaps most importantly of all, the staff and student bodies would be gender balanced, and would all see themselves, along with contributing employers, as members – on the John Lewis partnership model – of a single integrated enterprise.3 Every item in this list is radical but each one, except perhaps partnership/membership, has been successfully delivered in one or more universities around the world. The NMiTE aspiration is to enact them all in a single institution.

Background Hereford, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, was a centre of scholarship on a par with Oxford. The cathedral hosted a significant intellectual community. As Jesse Norman said at the 2018 inauguration “Hereford was a city of thinkers who specialised in all the seven liberal arts: not merely the mediaeval trivium of grammar, logic and rhetoric, but the quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music. That is, not merely the three arts of thinking itself, but the four specific subjects to which that thinking was to be applied. Hereford’s particular expertise in applied mathematics was of long standing, and it reflected the discovery of mathematical ideas and methods which had been lost to the West after the fall of Rome but had been kept alive, and much improved, by Arab scholars. In 1079 Bishop Robert of Lorraine had arrived in Hereford, having studied in Liège at a cathedral school with a reputation for mathematics, and he is reputed to have introduced the abacus to England. His friend and fellow man of Lorraine, Walcher, Prior of Great Malvern, was an expert in the astrolabe and the use of Arab mathematics. A century later, the scholar known as Roger of Hereford, who had studied geometry

3 The John Lewis Partnership operates on democratic principles, sharing power with all Partners (employees). Its first

democratic council was set up 100 years ago in 1919. Currently, the democratic network of elected councils, committees and forums enables Partners to participate in decision making, challenge management on performance and have a say in how the business is run. There are more than 3000 specially elected representatives who feed into the Partnership’s three governing authorities: the Partnership Council, Partnership Board and the Chairman, which run the Partnership. See also: www.johnlewispartnership.co.uk/about/how-we-share-power.html


and astronomy among the Arab masters in Toledo, composed a set of astronomical tables in 1178 around a meridian placed in Hereford.” Hereford would therefore have been a credible destination for disaffected Oxford scholars but, by an accident of history, these scholars chose to colonise Cambridge in preference to Hereford, resulting in an 800-year academic lacuna in Hereford’s grand contributions to education. Jumping directly to modern times, the period of this history exactly coincides with the crash of 2008 and the slow recovery from it. In the latter part of the period (2016 to 2018) Brexit dominated the political landscape. These were not good times for getting higher education to the top of the political agenda. For these reasons and others, higher education in the UK in the early 2000s is in an almost constant state of flux. The 2002 Labour Government target of 50% of young people going to university has recently been achieved and the range of undergraduate programmes has never been larger. Fees were introduced in 2006 and increased to £9000 pa in 2012, alongside a cap on home student numbers. The cap was removed in 2015, so currently universities can recruit as many students as they wish or are able to attract (except in medicine and dentistry). Accelerated courses (implying the achievement of a degree in 2 years rather than the conventional 3) were encouraged by government, which launched a full consultation in 2017. Engineering degrees have tended to be somewhat different from other subjects, involving more equipment and laboratory time. The main professional degree, an MEng, usually takes 4 years. Although hard figures are difficult to calculate it is widely accepted that degrees in engineering are more costly to provide than those in subjects which are more classroom-based. Estimates range around £15,000 per student per annum. The current enrolment in engineering degree programmes in the UK is 20-25,000 (depending on the subjects considered to be “engineering”) per annum, with only 60% or so being “home” (UK domiciled) students. 4 In most universities engineering is taught via lectures (typically 10 or 12 per week), tutorials and exercise classes (typically 1 or 2 per week) and laboratory classes (1 or 2 afternoons per week). There are examples of project-based classes and isolated pockets of problem-based-learning (PBL) but the norm is 20-22 hours per week of scheduled “contact time” supplemented by a notional 18-20 hours of private study. The academic year lasts 30 weeks (fewer in Oxbridge) and this often includes 3 or 4 weeks without classes for exams and revision. One year of study notionally earns 120 credits which are expected to involve 1200 hours of learning. A Higher Education institution offering its own degree programmes must have Taught Degree Awarding Powers (TDAP) awarded by the Privy Council or Office for Students (OfS) via the QAA, which subsequently checks the standard of the degrees awarded. Furthermore, an institution can only be granted University title after a successful submission (ultimately) to the Privy Council. Additionally, almost all engineering degrees are accredited by the Engineering Council as fulfilling the academic requirements of Chartered or Incorporated Engineer status and are regularly inspected by panels from the appropriate Professional Bodies. 16% of entrants to programmes in engineering & technology were female in 2015/16, compared with 56% of students in the whole university population.

The emergence of the idea Jesse Norman came to Hereford in 2006 and soon thereafter mounted a campaign to be elected as MP for Hereford and South Herefordshire. During that campaign he proposed, in July 2008, that

4 Data from Engineering UK 2018: The State of Engineering


Herefordshire should seek to establish a university: The then shadow chancellor, Oliver Letwin, spoke in support of this idea at an event in Hereford in late 2008. The motivation was encapsulated by Jesse Norman in two sentences: “It will help to reverse the flow of young people out of Herefordshire. It will unlock local talent, and it could make a major difference to the local economy by bringing in new companies, new skills and new private investment”. These sentiments were repeated in a press release in March 2009 with the words “I think a university for Hereford is absolutely key”. Norman’s early thoughts ranged from a small specialist institution, to a campus of a US university, to a branch of an existing UK institution. However, once the idea was refined into a clear vision it became apparent that the maximum benefit would be delivered to Hereford by a discrete, small, focused, high quality institution devoted to the education of highly employable engineers. This view was reinforced by many reports in the 2010s5 which revealed a current and future “skills gap” which would require an additional 20,000 or so professional engineers per year (estimates differed but the overall picture was consistent). Consultations across the world, and particularly in the USA, revealed that it would not be feasible to attract an existing institution to establish a campus in Hereford and therefore it would be better (and more flexible) to start a totally new university. Several years later, in May 2014, Norman chaired a discussion at the Hay Festival6 which was advertised in the following terms:

New University Britain needs more scientists and engineers, but can our universities deliver? Current

proposals for a new university in Hereford focus on employability and economic growth via a highly innovative ‘Liberal Sciences’ approach. If you’re a parent, a

teacher, an employer or just interested in the future of education, jump start your day with this lively discussion. Usher is leading the campaign for the New University, Thomas is Vice Chancellor of Bristol University, Landsman is Executive Director of

Tata and Willetts is Minister for Universities.7 Chaired by Hereford MP Jesse Norman

Note the use of the phrase “Liberal Sciences” at this stage. It was the first issue challenged by Peter Goodhew when he was recruited as the first engineer involved in the project. Liberal Sciences soon became Liberal Engineering.

Assembling the team In 2007 Jesse Norman met David Sheppard, who was then branch chairman of Penyard Conservatives, and they discussed the university project. The following year he met Karen Usher, an American who had fairly recently arrived in the county and who was involved in the conversion of her village shop and Post Office into a Community Centre (the Dorstone Front Room).

5 For example Closing the STEM Skills Gap, Royal Academy of Engineering, January 2017 6 The Hay Festival of Literature and Arts is an annual, 10-day event, staged in Hay-on-Wye and first held in 1988, which

seeks to bring ‘…readers and writers together to share stories and ideas in sustainable events around the world. The festivals inspire, examine and entertain, inviting participants to imagine the world as it is and as it might be.’ See also: www.hayfestival.com/home 7 The speakers cited were Karen Usher (as joint leader the campaign for the new university), Eric Thomas, Vice-Chancellor of Bristol University, and David Willetts, Minister for Universities.


In 2010 Norman was elected as Conservative MP for Hereford and South Herefordshire and he quickly set about progressing the university project. He brought together David Sheppard and Karen Usher in August 2010 and by July 2011 they had agreed to jointly lead the project – and thereby (although they might not have realised this at the time) committed every spare second of their time for the next seven years! David and Karen fortunately have an abundance of energy and experience of networking, fundraising and small business entrepreneurialism. They set about doing three principal things:

1. They met with and passed positive messages about the project to several hundred of the most influential people in Herefordshire and the neighbouring counties. This included local businesspeople, landowners, farmers, councillors, politicians and educators, together with representatives of the armed services, commercial enterprises, law firms, accountants, the church and retail outlets. A measure of their penetration and persuasiveness can be seen in the list of founder donors (see Appendix 2 and next paragraphs).

2. They persuaded 100 people and businesses – mainly local – to become Founder Fund Donors, each making a minimum donation of £5000. Critically this donation was unencumbered, giving the team freedom to invest where it saw the need. A list of Founders can be found in Appendix 2 and the way in which this money was spent is discussed in a later section. By September 2016, the Founders Fund had raised £885k, and eventually it exceeded £1.1M.

3. They used their networks, and that of Jesse Norman and his wife Kate Bingham, to reach out to educators in the UK, USA and elsewhere to establish what innovations would be needed or desirable in the construction and delivery of the NMiTE vision. The list of contacts was impressive, including a clutch of knighted leaders of half a dozen universities (see box). Among those who were contacted, some were initially sceptical - not about the vision but about the practicability of its eventual delivery. Despite this healthy scepticism almost every senior figure became a convinced supporter of the project.

A map of the major consultees and supporters can be found in Appendix 6 and details of those mentioned above are in Appendix 7. From these three parallel efforts, David Sheppard and Karen Usher developed a vision which was both desirable and achievable, and set about putting it on a more formal footing. Two charitable bodies were formally incorporated in December 2013: Herefordshire Tertiary Education Trust (HTET) and NMiTE. Since there was at that time no institution (NMiTE was merely an idea), the intention was that the management of the Founders Fund and the necessary next steps would be carried out via HTET.

The Collaborators It was clear to the team from early consultations that, although it would be technically possible to “go it alone” and set up NMiTE without partners, the process would be a lot easier with help from established and/or innovative institutions. Of those consulted, Bristol, Sheffield, Warwick, Olin and

Those consulted included John Hood

(Oxford), Terence Kealey

(Buckingham), Mary Stuart (Lincoln),

Rick Miller (Olin College), Nigel

Thrift (Warwick), Eric Thomas

(Bristol), David Helfand (Quest

University), Malcolm Grant (UCL),

Alan Wilson, Keith Burnett

(Sheffield), Colin Campbell

(Nottingham), Bahram Bekhradnia

(HEPI).

Beyond the immediate education

domain the team spoke to Richard

Sykes (Glaxo then Imperial College),

Charlie Mayfield (John Lewis),

Andrew Witty (GSK and Nottingham

University), John Kingman (Legal &

General, UKRI and UK Treasury) and

David Docherty (NCUB).


Quest seemed likely candidates for collaboration and/or validation. Of these, Sheffield soon decided that they did not have the time to be part of the development, and then went on to design and build their own innovative Diamond facility for engineering. Bristol and Warwick continued as equal partners but the involvement of Bristol was very much a personal initiative of the Vice Chancellor and, following his retirement, Bristol took a back seat and Warwick became the lead partner. Interestingly, although Bristol itself played no formal role, Eric Thomas – its VC at the time – subsequently joined the NMiTE Board as a Trustee. The collaboration with Warwick grew, surviving a change of VC from Nigel Thrift to Stuart Croft, and NMiTE is currently negotiating with Warwick as the potential sole validator of their degree. Olin and Quest represented a different type of collaboration. Both had themselves innovated and contributed significant ideas to the NMiTE vision, but the collaboration developed in different ways: Quest’s input evolved into personal support from David Helfand, initially while he was President of Quest but latterly as an individual whilst still being a Professor in the Department of Astronomy at Columbia University. In contrast, Olin’s President Rick Miller was personally influential in shaping the vision, but then also involved his institution and many of its staff (notably Mark Somerville and Jessica Townsend) in developing it further. Many of the volunteers on the NMiTE team visited Olin to see for themselves and NMiTE became a formal member of the Olin Collaboratory, in which many institutions meet regularly to discuss developments in engineering education. In 2014 David Goldberg (from Illinois) and Mark Somerville (from Olin), with Catherine Whitney, produced “A Whole New Engineer: The Coming Revolution in Engineering Education” describing the thinking behind the foundation of Olin College, and the iFoundry initiative at the University of Illinois. This was so timely that David Sheppard bought multiple copies and circulated them to many of the team. At the end of the first ten years, NMiTE appears to have one potential validator (Warwick), one development partner (Olin) and a host of volunteer advisors (most of the list in Appendix 4).

Confirming and refining the ideas An early conclusion of the discussions David and Karen held with vice-chancellors and employers was that, if not completely broken, the current model of engineering education was not appropriate for the development of the type of engineer who could contribute effectively and rapidly to 21st century industry and society. This somewhat contentious conclusion was reinforced by the publication, in 2013, of a report The Avalanche is Coming from IPPR which predicted the end of conventional universities (Barber et al). Current engineering programmes were heavy on engineering science, tending to produce academic, mathematically inclined graduates who found it difficult to adjust to the roles expected of them in employment. They had enjoyed little contact with industry or employers and – perhaps most importantly – they had never made anything. It was increasingly being recognised that one of the most succinct definitions of an engineer is “Someone who designs and makes useful stuff”. Despite taking courses with “design” or “manufacturing” in their titles most graduates had never designed or manufactured (or coded) anything at all. Their experience of working in a team was probably confined to a single module called “the team project”, and they had little understanding or experience of the context of engineering problems and challenges. An early idea was experiential or project-based learning instead of lectures. This concept was propounded and reinforced by Rick Miller, the founding President of Olin College. The team had been introduced to Rick by Nigel Thrift, then VC of Warwick. A visit to Olin revealed highly motivated students, in small groups, learning almost entirely via their engagement in projects. Olin operates a fairly conventional term/semester system and the idea of “blocks” (which came to be


known as “sprints”) emerged from lengthy discussions with David Helfand, at that time President of Quest University in Canada. Helfand was contacted by David Sheppard after Nigel Thrift showed him a video of his TED talk8. It was Helfand who propounded firstly the use of intensive periods of 3 or 4 weeks – long enough to get something done but short enough not to be boring – and secondly the optimal length of three and a half weeks. The length is important because a sprint is intensive for both staff and students, and 3½ weeks allows a four-day unwinding break before the next sprint starts. The idea of offering no lectures (except for the occasional external inspirational speaker) appears to have arisen from several sources but was cemented into the vision when Peter Goodhew shared his copy of the 1971 Pelican book by Donald Bligh entitled “What’s the Use of Lectures”. In this volume Bligh reviews a hundred pieces of research, available in 1971, almost all of which showed that the lecture is no better at transmitting knowledge or understanding than an (undirected) hour spent with a textbook. (This was before the arrival of the internet!) Lectures are not used, except for inspiration, at Olin College, so again there is a strong precedent for this decision. Goodhew produced a tattered 1972 copy of the Bligh volume during an interview with a journalist and this was partly responsible for a supportive article and an editorial in The Times in September 2016. Overall, the key educational concepts behind the NMiTE vision were informed by studies of 20 innovative universities (listed in Appendix 5) largely carried out by Michael Stevenson and Jo Edwards – with input from Peter Goodhew and Shelagh Wynn – who produced a report entitled A Framework for Teaching and Learning (2015).

Accelerated course The idea of accelerated courses is not new and two-year programmes have been offered at the University of Buckingham since its inception in 1976. Terence Kealey, at that time VC at Buckingham, spoke about this possibility in Hereford in 2013. Acceleration implies 45 or so weeks of study per year, which is usually achieved by adding a “summer semester” to the traditional two-semester or three-term year. Years involving 42 or more weeks of study have been commonplace in The Netherlands for many years so the choice of a 46-week year for NMiTE is not especially radical. However, despite government encouragement, at the time of writing only four UK institutions offer accelerated programmes, at Salford, Greenwich, London Metropolitan and Leeds Beckett in addition to Buckingham. None of these delivers an MEng, which traditionally takes 4 years of study.

Gender balanced One of the most evident, oft-discussed and most regretted aspects of engineering in the UK is its dominance by men. Women’s participation in engineering education is currently between 12 and 15%, after a hundred years of campaigning by WES (The Women’s Engineering Society) and WISE (Women into Science & Engineering). In 2017 there was a campaign on Twitter with women holding up hands on which were written “9%” – the percentage of women in the engineering workforce. For NMiTE the objective of achieving gender parity was a natural one, and it was established as an aim at a very early stage. The proportion of women in engineering is very similar in the USA, so it was encouraging to learn that Olin College had achieved approximate parity since its foundation in 2003. The NMiTE team realised that in order to have a chance of succeeding, in the UK, it would be necessary to ensure that the staff were as gender-balanced as they hoped the student body would

8 For details of TED (‘Technology, Entertainment and Design’) see: https://www.ted.com/about/our-organization


be. The appointment of a female chief executive (Elena Rodriguez-Falcon, succeeding the Founding President, Janusz Kozinski), and the fact that the first two employees – and the first Chair of the Board – were female, indicates a good start. In late 2018 ten of the twenty employees were female, and the Design Cohort of 25 young people was balanced 12/13. This was a clear demonstration that gender balance can be achieved.

No requirement for maths on entry It was, and still is, often asserted that mathematics is an essential requirement to study engineering, and that physics is highly desirable. However, it is also clear that, if the UK wishes to create more graduate engineers, there are insufficient school students and insufficient women studying both maths and physics to expand undergraduate engineering provision significantly. The decision not to require mathematics or physics at A level for entry to NMiTE was discussed widely, but it was evidence presented by Peter Goodhew which cemented the decision. Goodhew pointed out three things:

I. Discussions with many large employers had revealed that only a minority of their professional engineering employees actually used mathematics themselves in their work (they almost certainly used tools developed by other mathematically-minded engineers, but they did not deploy mathematics themselves);

II. Well-established universities of high repute (eg UCL, Civil Engineering) already admitted a minority of students without A level or equivalent mathematics, and these students are as successful as those with A level maths, and;

III. A recent (2015) report from the RAEng (Pathways to Success in Engineering Degrees and Careers) revealed that even in 2012 only 62% of UK engineering graduates had offered mathematics at A level (or equivalent). The degree results of those student who entered without mathematics were very similar to those of the whole cohort.

There appeared, from these data, to be no reason to demand A-level mathematics on entry. The programme should, and would, contain mathematical elements but they would be learned “just in time” rather than in special maths sprints. The absence of a requirement for mathematics begs the question what qualifications will be necessary for admission? The thinking of the team was that the important student attributes would be grit, curiosity and passion combined with evidence that they were very good at something – thus demonstrating an understanding of the nature of excellence. Early discussions with Warwick revealed that, at that stage, they would be seeking intellectual equivalence with their typical entry standard of AAB at A-level.

Liberal versus integrated In 2014 the working title of the NMiTE degree was “Liberal Science”. In early discussions between David Sheppard, Karen Usher, Shelagh Wynn and Peter Goodhew it became clear that the vision – of graduates who made things that were useful to society – was about engineering, not science. The working title became Liberal Engineering, and this remained the case until 2018. There are a few programmes - mainly in the USA – entitled Liberal Science, but none called Liberal Engineering. The term “Liberal Science” has gained a little traction, with a few degree programmes carrying this or related titles. However, the objective of these programmes is quite different from what NMiTE aspires to do. They do not aim to produce professional scientists, only graduates who are aware of


science. The Liberal Sciences programme at Laurentian University in Canada “is geared to students who want to obtain a science related degree but who do not necessarily intend to become working scientists”. Similarly, the Liberal Science program at Nipissing University (also in Canada) “is general in nature and will expose you to a range of scientific disciplines, and provide a broad-based understanding of science. You will study the basic concepts and approaches of modern science and consider its role in society today”. As a third example, the Arts and Sciences degree (BASc) at UCL in London “is UCL's Liberal Arts course. The degree offers a great range of disciplines across UCL. Students combine science and humanities/social science courses according to their interests and take core modules designed to foster interdisciplinary thinking”. The UCL programme is led by Carl Gombrich, who also took part in early consultations. These degree programmes are undoubtedly fascinating, and will produce better-educated citizens, but none of them aspire to produce better-educated professional scientists or engineers. Study.com even says “The field of liberal science is synonymous with liberal arts, liberal studies and the humanities”!

There are a small number of degree programme in Humanitarian Engineering. Two examples in the UK, at Coventry and Warwick, are both at Masters level – and incidentally are both “local” to NMiTE. They both emphasise engineering applications in the developing world, which is not quite the same as liberal engineering designed for application in any field of engineering.9

In mid-2018, following the appointment of some staff and the opening of serious discussions with the University of Warwick, it was decided to take forward a degree with the name “Integrated Engineering”. As far as I understand it, the principal reason for this decision was the perceived difficulty of marketing a degree entitled “Liberal Engineering”, rather than any desire to change the focus of the programme. The name has a number of strong positive attributes: It is familiar; it is a descriptor of the integrated MEng because it includes a pathway to BEng; it implies the integration of technical and non-technical topics; and it implies the integration of the engineer into society; but it is not novel.

Teamwork and cohort size Almost all engineering is done in teams, and most engineering programmes in the early 21st century acknowledged this by including at least one team project. However, this pays only lip service to the fact that, in employment, most fresh graduates will spend their whole time as part of a team. It was again an early decision that all learning at NMiTE would be based around projects addressed by teams of students. The questions then arose of how the team work should be structured. Review of practice in many universities revealed that 5 or 6 was the optimum size of a team (making it still viable in the face of illness, absence and - heaven forbid – dropout or failure). However, dividing a whole entry cohort into simple independent teams of 5 is problematic in terms of both space and organisation. It was decided to structure the student activity around studio spaces accommodating 25 students (conveniently 5 x 5). This was again based on experience at Olin, where room sizes dictate a maximum class size of 28-30, and at Quest, where 21 is the norm and both of these have been found to be effective. The advantages of having five teams in a single space are many: exchange of learning and a competitive spirit while keeping the numbers small enough to be closely monitored by an engineering staff mentor, supported by one or more non-technical mentors.

Design Cohort

9 Edited excerpt from “Engineering with a human face” by P J Goodhew in The Interdisciplinary Future of Engineering Education, p 49, Routledge 2018


The story of Olin’s partner programme has entered educational folklore: Olin College was endowed with sufficient funds to build a new campus at the outset. In fact, building started before the teaching faculty were hired and before the style of pedagogy had been determined. This has resulted in a set of buildings which are attractive but not always perfectly fit for purpose. However, the early start on building had an unanticipated side-effect with a very useful outcome. The buildings were not ready when the first small cohort of students had been recruited so the students were persuaded to become a group of partners in the development of the whole institution, to the huge benefit of the project. Many problems were solved by and with the student partners before the buildings were finished in time for the second student cohort. NMiTE has benefited from this serendipitous example, and the decision was taken in 2017 to recruit 25 young people – the Design Cohort (DC) – as co-developers of the NMiTE vision. A gender-balanced group of 25 young people was recruited and started work in September 2018, just in time for the inauguration but at the end of the period of this history. They seem to be getting on well, but their story is for the next recorder to tell.

Choosing a name New institutions have always been concerned about their formal name, and of course about the way it might be abbreviated. The title New Model Institute emerged very early in the project and was almost announced publicly, until Companies House pointed out that the word “Institute” is protected and can only be used for a body conducting research (a strange and questionable decision in my view – is The Women’s Institute a research body? – but the team had to accept it). The capital “I” was rapidly replaced by lower case and two words were added, to make New Model in Technology and Engineering. This was formalised by the incorporation of NMiTE as a charitable trust in December 2013. At the time this was seen as a placeholder pending a better title: It was not possible to use the word University before university title was granted. One of the earliest actions following the choice of name was the development of an NMiTE web site, which was commissioned from Scriberia and executed by design92. Because there could of course be no pictures of students or buildings (these were 5 years away) heavy use was made of sketches (both static and animated). This style survived until at least 2019. Subsequently many tens of thousands of pounds were spent on brand consultants (three paid and others pro bono) who considered a range of possible titles which included either conservative words which identified the locality (e.g. Hereford, Herefordshire, Wye, Wye Valley, Marches) or less obvious words intended to imply innovation and creativity. Among the suggestions were The Create, Ignite, Ark-E (coming to the rescue of engineering), RE:SET and The College of Future Engineers. There were many others but the suggestion with the shortest lifetime was The Wye Institute, which the first person who saw it immediately abbreviated to “The WI”10. Eventually all these options were parked and the title was for the moment retained as NMiTE (pronounced En-mite) largely because after 3 years the term NMiTE had gained some currency and familiarity, despite its cumbersome and opaque nature, and it was decided (by the Board) that it would be better in the short term to stay with the familiar. Of course, when university title is awarded there will be the opportunity for a re-think.

10 For those too young to be familiar with it, the WI is the Women’s Institute whose image used to be conveyed in the phrase ‘jam and Jerusalem’


Over the five years from 2013 to 2018 the meaning of the word “technology” was much debated and it was suggested that New Model in Teaching Engineering might be more accurate, but eventually the original title was retained. In 2018 the URL nmite.ac.uk was formally recognised!


Part 2: Making it happen

Raising funds and making the project real The persuasive powers of the two team leaders teased out 100 Founders Fund members, all of whom gave at least £5k and two of whom contributed more than £100k. A full list of the donors can be found in Appendix 2. The final total raised in unencumbered funds totalled £1.15M. This seems at first sight to be a large sum but it was all spent by early 2017 and it is instructive to examine where it went. The pie chart (Fig 1) shows very roughly how the funds were spent:

Fig 1: Expenditure from the Founders’ Fund As is often said of advertising “only half of it works, but we don’t know which half”. This is almost certainly true of the expenditure from the Founders Fund: All we know is that the money was spent and the outcome was the successful founding of an institution. Were all the questions addressed by consultants necessary? They related to branding, marketing, the education ecosystem, media relations and campus development, and they cost almost one-third of the funds, but it is impossible to assess their effectiveness. Very little money was spent on premises. The project needed somewhere to meet and to entertain visitors and for its part-time secretary to answer the phone. Initially this happened in modest office space above a small factory on the Rotherwas Industrial Estate, donated by one of the Founders Fund members. When the project became more established, with a CEO identified, the base was moved to a building closer to the centre of the city on Wye Street. After only a few months here, the headquarters moved again to the centre of the city, occupying 6a St Peters Square on a part-rental, part-purchase arrangement. Finally, a few months before the inauguration, a suite of offices in the Shirehall complex was identified, a few metres from 6a (as it became known). 6a was then converted to the first studio home for the Design Cohort of 25 young people. Its windows are deliberately clear and display the legend “New Model in Technology and Engineering: Your

9%

15%

10%

7%

27%

32%

FOUNDERS FUND EXPENDITURE

Fundraising Volunteers Salaries & office

CEO recruitment Legal, financial Research via consultants


university in the making”. Note the careful use of lower case for university; when this was written the university title is only an aspiration and cannot be claimed in public. However, providing a window into NMiTE students’ activities is surely an important part of the local messaging.

Getting Hereford on side Hereford is a small market city in the Marches – an ill-defined area on the English/Welsh border. The city and its famous cathedral are in England, about 20 miles from the border with Wales. It has a population in 2018 of about 56,000 and is the county town of Herefordshire, with a population of about 190,000. It is therefore a small city in a small county. Herefordshire is predominantly agricultural and rural with mostly small industries but a significant military presence as the headquarters of the Special Air Service (better known as the SAS or locally as The Regiment).

Fig 2: Hereford’s location on the England/Wales border Hereford thus has both a small population and a modest hinterland. It is illuminating to compare it with Chester – a university city with many similarities and with only a modestly larger population – about 80,000. However, the surrounding areas are much more densely populated, with the CH (Chester) postcode area containing almost 700,000 people. A successful university in Hereford must necessarily be attractive across a much wider geographical area than the county itself. Lincoln, with a population of about 95,000 in a county of 740,000 was studied because it had recently established an Engineering Faculty under the leadership of its VC Mary Stuart. Mary came to Hereford to advise the team on interactions with the city and its Council. As further comparators, rural Worcester has a population of 100,00 in a county of about 600,000 and for Gloucester the figures are 130,000 and 620,000. Hereford has to accept that it is small, but can take heart from the example of Aberystwyth which maintains a university with a population of only 15,000 in a county of 80,000. One of NMiTE’s key aspirations is to work closely with the employers of engineers, so it is worth considering the industrial and commercial environment of Herefordshire and the surrounding counties. When I first visited Hereford I was told that it had cows, asparagus, cider and the SAS (oh –


and the Mappa Mundi). This is still largely true but, except for the SAS and Mappa Mundi, the ownership of Herefordshire’s assets has subtly changed. In 1980 Hereford was a bustling market town; It had the second largest livestock market in the UK; Sun Valley Poultry had been bought by Cargill but still employed more than 2000 people; Bulmers brewed cider in large quantities; Denco employed hundreds making air conditioners. The people who ran and managed these companies lived locally. Then in 2003 Bulmers was bought by Scottish & Newcastle and 200 jobs were lost; in 2008 S&N were in turn bought by Heineken, bottling was stopped and more jobs were lost. Senior Heineken management were not based in Hereford. This position was later reversed and in 2017 Heineken invested £58M in a new bottling line and employment rose again. In 2015 Denco Happel ceased manufacturing in Moreton-on-Lugg and more jobs (and managers) were lost. In 2017 Cargill (then linked with Faccenda) became Avara and further senior management posts were relocated away from Hereford. In 2018 Hereford bustles less and contains more closed shopfronts (as, to be fair, do many market towns around the UK). The city and its surrounding area is host to many small high-tech companies (for example Deep Blue Engineering, Rehau in Ross-on-Wye and KGD) and feedback from these had emphasised the need for an enhanced supply of engineering graduates. The need for economic regeneration is clear and it was a major part of the case for NMiTE (and Jesse Norman’s idea) that a university would bring this. I have not been able to verify this, but it is often said that Herefordshire has the lowest per capita income in England, and is the only county without a university-level HE institution. While this is technically not true (see below), there is certainly little HE in the county. On the other hand, unemployment is very low (in 2017 only 3.1% of 16-64 year-olds) so jobs certainly exist. The main post-school education centres in Hereford are Hereford College of Art (HCA), and Herefordshire & Ludlow College (HLC). HCA has a strong reputation in art and design and offers more than a dozen BA (Hons) programmes. Of particular potential interest in the context of NMiTE is the programme in Artist Blacksmithing. At the end of 2015 Abigail Appleton was appointed Principal after a long career in the BBC, finally as Creative Director of BBC Learning. There is considerable potential for collaboration between HCA and NMiTE, not only in curriculum but also in more mundane ways such as student housing. The liberal aspirations of NMiTE open up large areas of potential collaboration in project work and outreach. Hereford Sixth Form College is a large (2000 student) and successful college. It sits on a site adjacent to Herefordshire & Ludlow College (recently expanded by a merger in November 2018 with North Shropshire College) which – inter alia – offers part-time HNCs in Computer Aided Manufacture & Automation, and Electrical & Electronic Control Engineering and to this extent has a small overlap with the probable NMiTE curriculum. It also has a link to the University of Worcester and the two institutions have jointly established the Hereford University Centre to promote higher education in Hereford. HCA has a site contiguous with HLC and the 6th Form College in North-East Hereford in what was planned to be Hereford’s education quarter. Finally, the University of Wolverhampton is leading on the development of a project to build a 3,000 sqm, £9m Cyber Security Centre on the South Magazine area of Skylon Park. The Centre will provide business office space to rent, specialist facilities for researchers and businesses to use and educational and training space. The Centre is envisaged to catalyse local strengths and connections in the cyber security sector, as part of the Cyber Triangle between Hereford (Special Forces) Cheltenham (GCHQ) and Malvern (Qinetiq). Funding has been secured from the Government’s Growth Deal Programme through the Marches LEP, ERDF, Herefordshire Council and the University’s


own resources. It is hoped that construction will start on site in January 2019, with it fully operational by March 2020. Again there is potential for collaboration with NMiTE, whose first full cohort will arrive in 2020, but as yet there are no firm plans. Thus there is modest scope for collaboration and cooperation in higher education within Hereford although in the period of this history no firm plans have been laid. Herefordshire Council has been controlled by the Conservatives throughout the period of this story, but has two almost equal minority parties both of which have a local focus and which have some reservations about growth in the County (It’s Our County and Herefordshire Independents). The Council majority, led by Jonathan Lester in 2018 and previously by Tony Johnson, has shown itself to be fully supportive of the NMiTE initiative and sees it as part of a range of important initiatives including building a by-pass and cyber-focused developments on Skylon Park in South-East Hereford. The Marches LEP was also supportive (see box). In particular, the Council was able to help with a loan of £300,000 to help prepare the “green book” submission (see below). It also acts as the “responsible financial body” for the funding from government and is lending officer support and advice to the senior NMiTE team. The Council is also supporting the use of its own land for student accommodation, in collaboration with Hereford College of Art. The Cathedral was strongly supportive of the project from very early on: it has contributed ideas about its potential as a resource for teaching, has shared its experience of fundraising and of course it made a splendid (non-religious for the day) location for the Inauguration in October of 2018. The Dean (Michael Tavinor) acted as Master of Ceremonies for the occasion. Finally, Karen Usher elicited strong support from the Lord Lieutenant of Herefordshire, Lady Darnley, and her Deputy Lieutenants - seven of whom became Founders. There were evidently many elements to the “Hereford” picture. Many people stressed that the locality needs to be seen as Herefordshire, not just the city of Hereford, and the reach of the College of Art, of Herefordshire and Ludlow College and of the cathedral, emphasises this.

Persuading government The decade of this history has been politically complex and turbulent. Between 2008 and 2018 the UK had four governments, three general elections, four Education Ministers and five Ministers for Universities. The governments have been of almost all complexions: Labour, Coalition, Conservative and Minority. Four parties have had a hand in power: Labour (2005 to 2010), Conservative (2010 to 2018), Liberal Democrat (2010 to 2015) and DUP (2017 to 2018). The NMiTE team was keen to make a completely non-political case for the project, but of course had to work with those in government at the time. Until 2014 this was David (now Lord) Willetts who shared a platform with the NMiTE team at the Hay Festival and became a staunch supporter. For the key period of 2015 to 2018 the key figure in the Conservative administration was the Minister of

Several LEP Board members were

convinced of the importance and

significance of the NMiTE project

and these included Christian

Dangerfield, Bill Jackson, Ian Peake

(Principal of Hereford and Ludlow

College), Peter Brown (former Chief

Executive of Hereford Housing) and

Frank Myers (Chair of Herefordshire

Business Board). Among Council

staff Alistair Neill (the Chief

Executive) and Geoff Hughes

(former Economic Development

Director) were particularly helpful.


State for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation, Jo Johnson. Jo Johnson was introduced to NMiTE by Bill Wiggin and became a strong supporter of the project. In 2016 he (JJ) published a White Paper in which he stated “We will make it quicker and easier for new high quality challenger institutions to enter the market and award their own degrees.” (Success as a knowledge economy, May 2016) The phrase “challenger institutions” was a reference to the “challenger banks” which were being established in significant numbers in the 2010s. In both cases the intention was to demonstrate that the existing mould could be broken and that new models (of banking and higher education) were viable. One of the innovations encouraged by Johnson at this time was accelerated degrees, usually phrased as a 3-year programme delivered in 2 years. In the context of engineering this meant, for NMiTE, a 4-year programme delivered in 3 years. Public awareness of the 4-year MEng as the primary route for a professional engineering degree is low, so the press rarely mentioned the timings for the NMiTE programme and it has been widely misquoted as a 2-year programme. Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) were abolished in 2010 and eventually replaced by Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs). When government funding was awarded in 2018, £8M of it was channelled through the local Marches LEP, which covers the Herefordshire, Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin unitary authorities. “Persuading Government” thus implied raising awareness and enthusiasm in UK Central Government (at Minister of Education, Minister of State for Universities, Department for Education and BEIS levels), in the LEP (which covers more than just Herefordshire) and in Herefordshire Council (which has a Conservative majority but in which the second largest groups are the local It’s Our County party and Herefordshire Independents). Two parallel campaigns were necessary: the first to get, and keep, the project on the political radar; the second to convince officials of the soundness of the case (particularly in terms of the need for finance in a county without the business wealth to support this). The first campaign was facilitated by the local MPs, particularly Jesse Norman, by persistently keeping George Osborne (then Chancellor of the Exchequer), Greg Clark (Minister of State for Universities in 2014), Jo Johnson (Minister for Universities from 2015) and his boss – latterly Justine Greening as Minister of Education – informed and positive about the project. This political campaign led to public statements of commitment by George Osborne (in a tweet dated Feb 12th 2015), Jo Johnson and eventually, Justine Greening to the effect that the government wished to see the project happen and would support its set-up with seedcorn funding. The pressure on George Osborne was supported by James Dyson in a strongly-worded letter in October 2015, which helped to elicit a positive written response from George Osborne to Jesse Norman in November 2015, saying that the Spending Review “has committed to providing dedicated support for a new university focused on engineering at Hereford”. The second backroom campaign involved compiling a compelling “green book11” submission to the DfE. This was led by David Sheppard, helped by very substantial volunteer efforts from David Nolan, Ian Falconer, Jon Gorringe and Kel Fidler and support from a number of Council officers and staff. The green book submission included a business case which inevitably had to contain projected numbers for staff, students and cash flow. In preparation for this submission, which went in in December 2016, the volunteers had to negotiate with HEFCE (as it was then), Herefordshire Council, UCAS, the Charity Commissioners and many other bodies. The eventual submission ran to 504 pages and included – in addition to three alternative business/economic cases – an industrial strategy, surveys of employers, market research, the teaching and learning framework, operational and financial assumptions, an organisational chart, a risk register, a draft partnership agreement and the

11 The Green Book is a 120-page Treasury document entitled Central Government Guidance on Appraisal and Evaluation which serves as a guide for any major funding submission to the government.


draft MoU with The University of Warwick. This was a huge piece of work, which consumed about 12 person-months of volunteer effort. The crucial outcomes were grants of £8M from The Marches LEP in March 2018 followed by £15M from the Department for Education in November 2018. Both sums were contingent on matched funding from elsewhere – employers, philanthropists or other benefactors. The 8-month gap between the two awards – both effectively coming from government - was a source of considerable frustration and effectively delayed the project by at least six months. The politicians involved in supporting the project were equally frustrated by the time taken to garner a ministerial sign-off. Equally important to the money was the goodwill which exists towards the project in both bodies (LEP and DfE). However, £23M is far short of the total sum required to establish a new institution and fundraising remains NMiTE’s top priority.

Convincing the engineering profession Engineers entered the project only after six years had passed, in 2014. The team realised that they had up to that point had no input from the engineering profession (other than in passing comments from employers). Contact was made, via Lucy Armstrong, with the Royal Academy of Engineering, and a meeting was arranged in The Clive at Ludlow between David Sheppard, Karen Usher and Shelagh Wynn and Professor Peter Goodhew, a retired Professor and Dean of Engineering who was a Fellow of the RAEng and a member of their education committee. A few months after this, Professor Kel Fidler (an ex-Vice-Chancellor and ex-Chairman of the Engineering Council and also FREng) agreed to advise the team, particularly on accreditation and academic quality assurance issues. In parallel with these academic inputs, Toby Kinnaird was recruited as the director of a local engineering company, with experience of apprentices in the manufacturing sector. Kinnaird became a Trustee member of HTET, while Fidler and Goodhew reached out to the engineering profession. The principal bodies in the UK were the Engineering Council, the QAA, the Royal Academy, the IET, IMechE and ICE. Internationally the team reached out to CDIO, SEFI, European Deans of Engineering as well as the Olin Collaboratory. In the four years 2014 to 2018 Goodhew and Fidler alone wrote seven formal papers and made twelve presentation to professional bodies, engineering education conferences, the School of Engineering at Warwick and other engineering associations. Fidler secured funding for an IET Conference on Engineering Higher Education in 2017 at which Rick Miller (Olin) and Janusz Kozinski (who became NMiTE Founding President) spoke. In addition, following Kel Fidler’s suggestion to the IET CEO, a dinner to discuss Engineering Higher Education was held for senior industrialists and academics (and Baroness Brown) at the IET, the host being Professor John Perkins.

Although accreditation is not possible until there is a degree and some graduates, discussions were opened with the Engineering Council and two of the major accrediting PEIs, the IET and IMechE. These discussions were intended, by both sides, to explore the potential for future accreditation. Since accreditation is understood to be based on outcomes and NMiTE intends to graduate professional engineers, no show-stopping problems were identified in these discussions.

Developing a curriculum For a university which aspires to teach engineering it might seem that the engineering curriculum was the top priority. However, although a great deal of time was committed to curriculum development – particularly before the appointment of staff – it turned out that there were very many more calls on time and money than just the curriculum. Thus, although I have documented at least 16 meetings to discuss the curriculum in 2016 and 2017, in 2018 the fraction of employed staff


dedicated to this central task was 15%! Such were the strange fixations at this time that a 3-day retreat was held in Ross-on-Wye in January 2017, with overseas facilitators and at a cost of many thousands of pounds, without engineering or the curriculum being mentioned at all. The curriculum had its beginnings in the survey carried out by Michael Stevenson and Jo Edwards in 2015 (A Framework for Teaching and Learning). One of the key issues which produced much discussion was the balance of “liberal” and “hard engineering” content. It was agreed at an early stage that 30% (or “about a third”) of student time should be spent on non-technical matters. There was a large (ridiculously large in retrospect) amount of time spent on debating what to call the non-technical material. It was argued strongly that non-technical topics (non-technical knowledge, skills and attitudes) should be part of the armoury of an engineer, especially an NMiTE graduate. They are therefore in effect “engineering”! Equally they are not just “liberal” topics for exactly the same reason – they are part of the engineering context. Agreement was eventually reached on “technical” (but not using the word “hard”) and “non-technical” (but not using the word “soft”). Unanimity was reached more speedily on the principle that there was to be no separate teaching of non-technical topics. All non-technical topics, from aesthetics to zeitgeist, should arise (albeit perhaps with some external stimulation) in the context of technical projects. It was also quickly apparent that there would be no role for lectures in the curriculum except occasionally by external speakers for inspiration or enrichment, but that learning would be experiential, based around employer-inspired projects. The harder question to answer was: what should not be covered? The General Engineering syllabi offered at Durham, Warwick, Oxford and Exeter were studied and, although the issue is not fully decided at the time of writing, it seems likely that the majority of technical content will be from the mechanical, materials and electronic domains, with some civil engineering but little chemical. The rationale for this is that most engineered artefacts now and in the future, will have both mechanical and electronic (including computing) aspects, and that both civil and chemical engineering involve large and expensive kit and/or products. The lengthy debate about the curriculum principally involved the small number of technically-qualified volunteers and staff. Stimulated by the Stephenson/Edwards report the key contributors turned out to be Peter Goodhew and Kel Fidler (both retired Professors of Engineering and the only engineering academics and the only Chartered Engineers involved in developing the curriculum), Helen Rogers (a physicist and the first employee, albeit at that stage not as a professor) and Janusz Kozinski (before and after his appointment as Founding President). They consulted and involved many others, including colleagues from The Lassonde School, John Perkins (author of the Perkins Report Review of Engineering Skills, Department for Business Innovation and Skills, 2013) Rhys Morgan (Director of Education at the Royal Academy of Engineering) and Mike Cook (Buro Happold). In early 2017 it was clear that the curriculum would be delivered in sprints (blocks, as they were then called) lasting about 3 weeks (later extended to 3.5 weeks at the suggestion of David Helfand, see above p 8). This was shown, by Helen Rogers and others, to be a scalable model for the curriculum. A working party was set up to imagine and a devise an exemplar block. Peter Goodhew led this group, which contained younger engineers from both conventional universities (Liverpool, Sheffield and Leicester) and industry (Rolls Royce and Costain). The group identified a number of important issues which arose when industrial employees tried to imagine a very short project with high expectations of learning conforming to the project practices which are the norm in their industry.


In parallel with the development of a curriculum, discussions about engineering education were held, both privately and on the fringes of conferences, with staff and Fellows of two of the major PEIs – IET and IMechE. The curriculum was described as fully as possible in a series of White Papers authored by Kel Fidler, Helen Rogers and Peter Goodhew, the last of which was Version 3 - dated March 2018. In this series the acronym AIMLED was suggested by Kel Fidler. It stood for Accelerated Integrated Masters Liberal Engineering Degree, which encompassed the major elements of the proposed curriculum. Note that “Integrated Masters” had (and still has) the specific meaning that the Masters degree (MEng) is integrated with the BEng curriculum. It does not necessarily mean that the curriculum content is “integrated” or “general” engineering as in degree titles in other universities. It does however carry the important connotation (unique to NMiTE) that there is an integration of technical and non-technical material within a single engineering degree programme. The acronym was no longer used and the curriculum had still not been fully crystallized in late 2018. Although the principle of co-design by academics and employed engineers was accepted, it was not possible with only 3 academic staff (only one of whom is a qualified engineer) and an unspecified choice of engineering partners, to construct more than paper sprint specifications.

Attracting staff Until April 2017 – that is for the first eight and a half years of our ten year story – the project had no staff except an occasional very part-time secretary and book-keeper. It was carried forward entirely by volunteers, of whom the principal players are listed in the Appendix 4, led, nagged and coaxed by David Sheppard and Karen Usher. The model for the governance of NMiTE was heavily influenced by discussions with Charlie Mayfield (John Lewis) and was constantly referred to as the “John Lewis model”. The key point was to be that all employees, all students and the collaborating employers should be seen as the three set of partners in the enterprise. Taking this a bit further, it was generally agreed that all staff (whatever the title of their formal primary role) should be willing – and ideally happy – to help in the education of NMiTE students: The idea was that everyone has something useful to bring to a liberal education and that all participants in this new venture would be required to help ensure that the vision and mission of the project were ultimately delivered by the executive leadership and Board. By 2018 NMiTE had as yet no students so the idea could not be implemented fully. However, it has been true that many staff have interacted with the Design Cohort in 2018, so the omens appear good. In the first period, before the arrival of staff, thirteen volunteers served as trustees of HTET and a subset of these also acted as trustees of NMiTE. The first substantive employees, who started in April and June of 2017, were Helen Rogers and Anthea Parker, whose current roles are respectively Professor and Head of Strategic Planning. In July 2017 Dame Fiona Kendrick became chair, and Sir Eric Thomas vice-chair, of the NMiTE Board and Janusz Kozinski became Founding President and Chief Executive. This was the real beginning – the end of the “phony war” – when recruitment became possible following the announcement of a grant of £8M from The Marches LEP in March of 2017 and the arrival of the first funds from DfE in January 2018. Between August 2017 and October 2018 the number of employees grew rapidly, from 5 to 20 (see figure). It is worth looking at a few characteristics of this growth: Firstly, as might be expected of a start-up, not every appointment was successful. In that period of 15 months, 20 people were hired and five departed, giving a growth of one a month, but conceding five “mistakes”! Those who left the project during this period of rapid growth included the Founding President, the Chief Operating


Officer and two staff from across the Atlantic. This is not the place to go into the details of the departures but it must be true that, even if some turnover should be anticipated, departures within a year or so of the project being funded are disruptive and delay progress. The necessity of finding replacements (or deciding not to replace) initially fell largely on to the shoulders of the volunteers – simply because there was no-one else! A second key feature of the staff profile is how few engineers were hired. The project’s key deliverable is to be an engineering curriculum, yet after 15 months there were only 3 engineers among the 20 staff. It remains to be seen whether this turns out to be very significant, but it does point up the fact that in establishing a university from nothing, the whole infrastructure of a potentially large institution has to be established at an early stage. NMiTE must have professional staff capable of dealing with government financial regulations, the hiring of staff, the validation of courses/programmes via The University of Warwick, the Office for Students and the Department for Education and the acquisition of premises – and an appropriate IT infrastructure – in which to operate and eventually teach. Finally – an obvious point for an institution committed to a 50/50 gender balance among staff and students – it is apparent that this had been achieved in the staff body at the time of the inauguration.

Fig 3: Profile of NMiTE employees

During 2018 attempts were made to recruit the teaching staff around whom the innovative curriculum would be formed. It was hoped that they would be called simply “mentors” but there was a worry that without the title of “professor” the role would not be perceived as sufficiently attractive, so formal academic titles paralleling those used at Warwick were introduced. It was soon clear that the marketing and image-building work done by the volunteers and early staff (particularly Kozinski, Rodriguez-Falcon and Rogers) had paid off in terms of attracting applicants. Dozens of people were both switched on by the vision and keen for a break from the current life of an engineering academic. Few of these were concerned about turning their back on technical research, but equally few of them had much experience in pedagogic research. And of course none of them had genuine experience with the sort of innovative pedagogy which NMiTE needs, so all had to be assessed on potential rather than achievements.

0

5

10

15

20

25

Ap

r-1

7

May

-17

Jun

-17

Jul-

17

Au

g-1

7

Sep

-17

Oct

-17

No

v-1

7

Dec

-17

Jan

-18

Feb

-18

Mar

-18

Ap

r-1

8

May

-18

Jun

-18

Jul-

18

Au

g-1

8

Sep

-18

Oct

-18

NMiTE Employees(omitting short term interns)

Employees Engineers Females


The first few mentors - Allan, Rogers and Webb - had been appointed by October 2018, when the Development Cohort of young people started. Of concern, however, was that several applicants of genuine potential had decided that – for one reason or another – they could not commit to the project. It is dangerous to generalise from a few experiences, but it seems that most of those who turned down NMiTE’s offer were personally convinced by the vision but found that other factors (family issues, nervousness about financial risk) held them back. This cannot be surprising but is exacerbated by the isolated location of Hereford – transport links by road or rail are not good to the major centres of population. One is forced to contrast this with Olin College, which appears to be locally isolated but is only 18 km from downtown Boston and 5km from a major intersection on I90 (and benefited hugely from a $500M endowment).

The University of Warwick The partnership between NMiTE and Warwick has survived many changes and some vicissitudes. Nigel Thrift, then its Vice Chancellor, was one of the key early visionaries. He was convinced that Warwick would benefit from an insight into new pedagogies and that the NMiTE “experiment” was a low-risk way of exploring a new style of teaching and learning. NMiTE would be at arms length: If it succeeded Warwick could learn a lot; if it failed Warwick could walk away and the fault would have been NMiTE’s. Thrift passed this vision to his successor, Stuart Croft, but in both cases the implementation of the vision was delegated to Deputy VC level, first to Pam Thomas as PVC for Research and later to Christine Ennew as Provost since late 2016. Warwick was asked to provide a Trustee for the NMiTE Board and Peter Scott – an entrepreneurial chemist although not initially a Professor – enthusiastically volunteered. He is still – in 2018 – actively involved. Interactions between NMiTE and Warwick are complicated by the existence of a conventional School of Engineering as well as the engineering-focused Warwick Manufacturing Group led by Lord (Kumar) Bhattacharyya. Although WMG has had stable leadership from Bhattacharya, there was a ripple in the pond when they announced a tie-up with James Dyson and the formation of Dyson Institute which hopes to offer BEng degrees in General Engineering. Dyson is applying for its own degree awarding powers, but might yet ask Warwick to validate its degrees. In contrast to the stability and outgoing view of WMG the Headship of the School of Engineering has changed twice and the perception of reputational risk has been sharper within the School, which has been harder to persuade of the benefits (to the School) of the NMiTE experiment. Warwick had, until the emergence of Dyson and NMiTE, never been involved in validation of degrees offered by external bodies. The learning curve and associated difficulties have been palpable but at the time of writing seem likely to have a positive outcome.

The Inauguration The spectacular inauguration in Hereford Cathedral on 19th October 2018 marks the end of this history but the real beginning of NMiTE. One of the most moving parts of the ceremony was the declaration of the Founding Principles of the institution, which are reproduced in full in Appendix 9. While these may be refined in the future they stand as a splendid statement of intent for the new institution.


Part 3: Themes which emerge

What was needed Many elements eventually came together to create a new institution in Hereford. It may be that other routes through the terrain would also have been successful, but we can only comment on the route actually taken. What were its essential features? First there had to be an idea, capable of being developed into a vision. The need was articulated by Jesse Norman. Second there had to be a small team of committed disciples, convinced of the idea and capable of developing it into a clear vision and a credible project. This was David Sheppard and Karen Usher. Thirdly there had to be expertise in engineering education, mainly provided by Peter Goodhew and Kel Fidler. The fourth huge requirement was the resource to flesh out and deliver the project. This required money, but not only money. It required expertise – expertise in fundraising, in education, in government (local and national), in law, in estates, in media and the press and last but certainly not least, in engineering. Some of this expertise was bought with money but much more was contributed by unpaid volunteers – I estimate more than 70 individuals (see Appendix 6) in addition to the 100 companies and individuals who had contributed the money (Appendix 2). This huge troupe of volunteers had to be corralled and led – in this instance still by David and Karen. Fifthly the project had to be sold to Hereford and brought to life in real buildings to house the first employees. Finally – as far as this history goes – the first employees and students had to be recruited and led to what we might call the starting gate. The Inauguration, splendid and inspiring though it was, can only be regarded as the firing of the starting pistol for a long steeplechase – there will be hurdles aplenty, rigours, disappointments, exhilaration and eventually, we hope, a university.

The outsider It is at first sight remarkable how many of the major actors in our ten-year drama come from far beyond Hereford and Herefordshire. David Sheppard came down from the North-East of England in 2003; Karen Usher entered the county from the USA in 2004; Jesse Norman arrived from London in 2006; David Helfand hails from the USA and worked in Canada; Peter Goodhew is based in Chester; Kel Fidler is a proud Yorkshireman; Janusz Kozinski is a Pole from Canada; Elena Rodriguez-Falcon came from Mexico via Sheffield. Very few of the project drivers were long-standing Herefordians and many believe that the County Council was, as a body, slow to appreciate the tremendous potential positive impact of an HE institution on their city and county. One possible lesson from this observation is that it takes an outsider to articulate an innovative vision in a way which is persuasive to local people. The visionary NMiTE scheme was informally validated by so many people without a vested local interest but with huge international credibility. Those “outsiders” brought (implicitly if not explicitly) the imprimatur of MIT, Oxford, UCL, the Royal Academy of Engineering, The Russell Group12, Dartmouth, even other countries – USA, Canada, Mexico, Poland. Eventually of course some of these outsiders became “locals” (Jesse Norman, David Sheppard, Karen Usher) and were joined by eminent Herefordians (notably Fiona Kendrick, Lady Darnley and Lord Lisvane) but the arguments were presented and won by energetic enthusiasts who, when they started their campaign, were outside the fold.

12 The Russell Group is ‘…a self-selected association of twenty-four public research universities in the United Kingdom’, with an emphasis on research excellence. See also: russellgroup.ac.uk


Since the campaign started in earnest in about 2012, Karen Usher and David Sheppard gave more than 300 presentations, locally, nationally and internationally. Despite this, it probably remains true the NMiTE is better known outside Herefordshire than within.

An idea whose time has come It became clear, during the decade recorded here, that the NMiTE team are not the only people trying to radically improve engineering education. Many universities in the UK, and others around the world, are realising the dual benefits of student-centred active learning and the need for liberal, socially aware, humanitarian engineers. Although international movements such as CDIO have been active and have provided support for change in 150 engineering faculties around the world, more is happening on a piecemeal basis. Thus, in the UK alone, there have been substantial efforts made at Liverpool (the Active Learning Labs in 2008), Sheffield (The Diamond), UCL (the Integrated Engineering Programme), Kings (the re-establishment of engineering on a new basis), Lincoln, Chichester, Coventry, Loughborough, Dyson and Manchester (which had a brief flirtation with PBL). It is also apparent that many of the senior academics consulted by NMiTE between 2013 and 2015 were eager for NMiTE to succeed because of the frustrations they experienced when they could not change their system enough while they were running it! It was hugely helpful to the NMiTE team that they started with nothing: no conservative staff; no lecture theatres; no-one resistant to change (at least inside the project!). The down side of course was that they also had no money and no buildings, but you have to start somewhere …. So the radically innovative approach which was the essence of the NMiTE project was indeed an idea whose time had come. But it also needed another quintessential ingredient: luck. There were lots of lucky elements to the project, including: The arrival of Jesse Norman and a general election; the availability of David Sheppard and Karen Usher; the identification of some senior engineering academics who instantly wanted to support the project; the presence of Jo Johnson in the right post at the right time, and just about for long enough; the enthusiasm and generous offers of help from many, many people, and the desire of government to promote new models of higher education, including acceleration. It could be argued that the arrival of full fees also helped by focusing the minds of young people and their parents on the value of a degree – turning them towards seeing themselves as consumers who then automatically question Value for Money. Each of these lucky events was important, and the combination was serendipitous. It is probably idle to speculate about the development of the project in the absence of luck, but I think I know!

The strange absence of engineers From about 2014 it was clear that NMiTE was going to focus on engineering. At about that time three engineers became involved (Peter Goodhew, Kel Fidler and Toby Kinnaird). Fidler and Goodhew were largely responsible for the development of the engineering curriculum. Eventually an engineer, Janusz Kozinski, was appointed as Founding President and then Elena Rodriguez-Falcon as Provost and subsequently President. Dave Allan, also an engineer, became a professor in 2018. Kel Fidler ceased to play an active role in early 2018, while Peter Goodhew went on to become NMiTE’s first Honorary Professor at the end of 2018. Rather bizarrely, an institution dedicated to engineering and fixated on offering accredited degrees leading to chartered status in the UK had only a single CEng among its 21 staff in 2018 – and he has only an Honorary post. The Board of Trustees, similarly, has never had a Chartered Engineer in its membership and at the end of 2018 contains no engineers (chartered or not) at all!


There are a number of engineers highlighted in Appendix 7, but with the exception of those named above, together with Mark Somerville, Rick Miller, Jessica Townsend and Mike Cook, they were on the whole briefed about the project but did not contribute in any practical way.

The next steps The way forward for NMiTE is still hazardous, despite the excellence of the groundwork of the first ten years. Not only does it have to raise substantial funds, prepare and deliver a curriculum and convince the OfS, its validator and accreditors of its stability, but it must do this against a background of continual rapid change. The most obvious unknowns in the HE environment in early 2019 are the levels of fees (with debate continuing about a reduction from £9250 pa), the impact of Brexit (if and when it happens), the immigration status of overseas students (which has seen a lot of discussion but little change), the impact of graduate apprenticeships and T-levels and the controversy about unconditional offers of admission. On the positive side, a huge amount has been achieved in the first ten years by enthusiastic and energetic volunteers, and recently by dedicated and hard-working staff. With the same amount of luck, the next ten years hold a great deal of promise. The second13 group of 50 proto-students – the Pioneer Cohort – will be recruited in 2019 and the serious testing of the curriculum and its delivery will start. The first graduates should be emerging half-way through the decade, in 2023.

Lessons which might be learned The story above – despite its intended “warts and all” approach – has perhaps focused too much on the successes and too little on the inevitable failures and setbacks. What follows is a partial list of the problems which the project faced, and largely overcame:

1. At all stages, money was a problem. Creditors were asked to delay their invoices, professionals were asked to work pro bono (and many did), payment of even modest expense claims was delayed and even after the apparent success resulting in £23M of awarded funds, cash flow problems persisted and a “freeze” was necessary in 2018. At one (fairly early) stage the situation was tided over by loans totalling £30,000 from David Sheppard and Karen Usher. The lesson is not just that money gets tight, but that volunteers need to have the balls to ask others, and the resources to dip into their own pockets.

2. The second problem is identifying who might be the long-term academic partners. Separating short-term enthusiasts who may drop out (e.g. Sheffield, Bristol) from those with staying power (e.g. Warwick and Olin) is not easy and cannot always be predicted. The vision had to be strong enough to cope with changes – and may still need to be in the future.

3. Negative pushback by some elements of Herefordshire Council, exacerbated by some less-than-helpful articles in the local press, added a large amount of leg-work to the key volunteers. The team had enough to do dealing with real problems (government, validation, premises, staff) without needing to spend time sweet-talking those in the region who were as yet unpersuaded of the advantages of hosting a university. This costs energy and time, if not money.

4. Government Ministry delays, followed by rigid and extensive demands for more information and evidence, sapped the morale of the team at critical moments. For instance, there was an 11-month interval of nail-biting in 2017 between the submission of the green book case

13 It could be argued that the Pioneer Cohort will be the first group of proto-students, since the Design Cohort contains people who do not aspire to become engineers and most of the Sprints on which they are working are not based on engineering. The Pioneer Cohort will be offered the chance to enrol as students and it remains to be seen to what extent they take advantage of this.


and the signing off of the major award from DfE. The role of the team leaders in this period was to remain optimistic and to try to keep everyone else confident of the eventual outcome. Key lesson – expect at all times to be disappointed by interactions with government!

5. The departures of both the founding President (after 12 months) and the first Chief Operating Officer (after 3 months) caused a tremor to run through the project. While it was possible to argue that NMiTE did not at that stage really need a COO, it could not be said that it did not need a President. What could be said was that the role of the President needed to change from that of an external-facing visionary to an internal-facing manager, and it should not be surprising that two different people were needed for these two consecutive roles. Nevertheless, the loss of its first President and CEO was probably the worst piece of press NMiTE suffered in its first ten years. It is pleasantly surprising that it did not have a major effect on the morale or effectiveness of NMiTE staff.

6. The transition from a volunteer team to a set of NMiTE employees exposed a predictable set of tensions. Until there are employees, volunteers are both advisors and executives – there is no-one else. Once there is an employed workforce and a formal Board, the role of volunteers is largely as non-executive advisors. Some volunteers found this to be a difficult transition. The difficulty is exacerbated by the fact that heavily involved volunteers may have invested years (from 3 to 7 years in this case) in thinking about, planning and developing the project. The vast majority of employees had no significant experience of the project when they started, yet they carried full responsibility for its delivery14. “On boarding” is a phrase much liked in HR departments but whatever you call induction of new staff, it is almost impossible to pass on years of experience and thinking in any reasonable induction period. Which leads to the final point:

7. Communications, communications, communications (and more communications). It is a cliché that communication between those involved in a project is both crucial and difficult. So it proved with the NMiTE project. On reflection it would have been a miracle if all parties had felt properly informed. Consider the numbers: One hundred Founders Fund members, a dozen Trustees, fifteen key volunteers, a network of more than 80 advisors or interested observers engaged for varying periods over ten years, and although the vision remained fairly constant much of the detail was evolving rapidly. And now there are more than 20 employees. Several volunteers spoke of the communication deficit from personal experience. They rarely felt that they knew enough about what was going on, despite having written or contributed to many documents and attended many meetings. One of the most crucial types of communication has been referred to in the previous paragraph – on-boarding of new people. However, an almost equally important aspect of communication is keeping volunteers who have given advice informed about what use has been made of this advice – did it make it into policy? Was it useful? Was a different decision eventually taken, and if so why? The lesson is the same as that not fully learned in universities concerning student work: Feedback, feedback, feedback!

I am sure that all the above seem terribly familiar to anyone who has been involved in a start-up or a charity. But they still exist as challenges in the early 21st century.

14 One exception is Helen Rogers, who was the first employee in April 2017 after having already been a volunteer for a couple of years


Concluding remarks This story is about people, as a history must be. More than a hundred names are mentioned and to some extent the choice of names is arbitrary: I could have replaced seventy of these with others whom NMiTE has reached out to and sought advice from. I have also deliberately avoided writing about the staff who are beginning to form the team who will take NMiTE forward – yours is the exciting chance to feature in the story of the second ten years, which is very unlikely to be written by me. Many hundreds of individuals have been exposed to the NMiTE vision – mainly by one or other of the key volunteers listed in Appendices 3 and 4. In my experience (and I have myself probably pitched or spoken to a couple of hundred) there are four typical responses:

1. This is an interesting idea but it will not work because …. (there follows a statement about the essential nature of mathematics or the usefulness of the lecture or the alleged dislike of students for team work or the need for marks to motivate students to do anything or …). Since all these statements are readily falsifiable many (but not all) of these people are persuaded that “there might be something in it”. I estimate that 70% of people fell into this category.

2. This is an interesting and useful idea. It will be difficult and you will probably fail but I wish you well. Maybe 15% of people made this response.

3. This is an interesting and valuable idea and I encourage you to pursue it (sometimes followed by “I wish I had been able to do this at [name of well-known University]”). You might benefit from talking to [name of influential person in academe, industry or government] and I can give you an introduction. At least once this introduction happened so rapidly that it was fixed before the NMiTE enthusiast got home! About 10% of people were helpful in this way and luckily 10% of several hundred is quite a good number.

4. This is really exciting and I want to contribute in a tangible way. What can I do to help? These people are the 5% whose names found their way into Appendices 3 and 4. They acted as Trustees, they loaned money, they participated in workshops, they devised and wrote policy, they travelled to London and Birmingham and Boston and Bristol and Warwick, they reached out by speaking at conferences, talking to journalists, to government officials and around Hereford. They are the people who made NMiTE a reality. I salute them!

Acknowledgements I must thank my interviewees (you know who you are) and my early readers Karen Usher, David Sheppard, Jesse Norman, Kel Fidler, Gwen Goodhew, David Bacon, Stephen Fox and Tim Feest who helped me shape the piece. Most of all I must thank everyone involved in the NMiTE project for allowing me to participate in the most enjoyable project of my long career. I wish it, and its future graduates, the great success they deserve.


References Barber, M., Donnelly, K. and Rizvi, S. (213) ‘An avalanche is coming: Higher education and the

revolution ahead’. London: Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). Available at: https://www.ippr.org/files/images/media/files/publication/2013/04/avalanche-is-coming_Mar2013_10432.pdf

Bligh, D. (1971) What’s The Use Of Lectures? London: SRHE Monographs; also published by Penguin

as a Pelican paperback (London: 1972). Carroll, L. (1872) Through The Looking Glass, And What Alice Found There. London: Macmillan, p

100. DBIS (Department for Business, Innovation and Skills) (2016) ‘Success as a knowledge economy:

Teaching excellence, social mobility and student choice’. White Paper. London: DBIS.

Goldberg, D. E., Somerville, M. and Whitney, C. (2014) A Whole New Engineer: The Coming Revolution in Engineering Education. Douglas, MI: Threejoy® Associates.

Perkins, J. (2013) ‘Professor John Perkins’ Review of Engineering Skills’, London: Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/254885/bis-13-1269-professor-john-perkins-review-of-engineering-skills.pdf

RAE (Royal Academy of Engineering) (2015) ‘Pathways to success in engineering degrees and careers’. London: RAE. Available at: https://www.raeng.org.uk/RAE/media/General/Pathways-to-success-in-engineering-degrees-in-careers-report.pdf

Robbins, Lord L. (1963) ‘Higher Education: Report of the Committee on Higher Education’. London:

HMSO. Available at: http://www.educationengland.org.uk/documents/robbins/robbins1963.html.


Appendices

Appendix 1: Timeline The different colours indicate local background, national background and specific NMiTE events. 1980 Cargill bought Sun Valley (poultry) Employs 2250 in 2017 2000 Student maintenance grants replaced by loans in UK 2003 David Sheppard arrived in Hereford 2003 Bulmers bought by Scottish & Newcastle - loss of 200 jobs 2004 Karen Usher arrived in Hereford 2006 Jesse Norman arrived in Hereford 2006 (and earlier) Suggestion of a joint university venture with Worcester - came to nothing 2006/7 £3k student fees introduced 2007 David Sheppard and Jesse Norman meet 2008 (July) Jesse Norman press release advocates a university for Hereford 2008 (Sept) Karen Usher and Jesse Norman meet 2008 S&N bought by Heineken - more jobs lost and bottling stopped 2010 (May) General Election: Jesse Norman elected for Hereford and South Herefordshire 2010 (May) David Willetts becomes Minister for Universities 2010 (Aug) Karen Usher and David Sheppard introduced to each other by Jesse Norman 2011 (July) Karen Usher and David Sheppard committed to "leading the HE project" 2012/13 UK student fees raised to £9k per year 2012 (June) Youth Forum for Hereford identified a university as one of the top 7 visions 2013 Terence Kealey (Bucks) consulted 2013 Olin (Rick Miller) brought in by Nigel Thrift 2013 (Dec) HTET and NMITE incorporated 2014 (April) Meeting in Imperial pub - Toby Kinnaird involved 2014 (?) David Nolan brought in to do HTET accounts 2014 (Oct) Peter Goodhew meets Karen Usher, David Sheppard and Shelagh Wynn 2014 (Dec) Kel Fidler briefed 2015 Denco Happel (air conditioners) ceased manufacturing in Moreton-on-Lugg (250 employees in 2003) 2015 (Feb) City of Culture bid started 2015 (May) Jo Johnson becomes Minister for Universities 2015 (April) Norm Augustine spoke at Warwick 2015 Warwick and Olin agree to support NMiTE 2015 (June) Kel Fidler involved 2015 (July) Sandpit/Ignite conference at Warwick 2015 (Nov) George Osborne announced the government's intent to support NMiTE 2015 (Dec) Abigail Appleton appointed to HCA 2016 Toby Kinnaird on Trustee Board - only engineer. Helped interview senior staff 2016 Ian Falconer recruited 2016 (Nov) MoU signed with University of Warwick 2016 (Nov/Dec/Jan?) Green Book submission 2016 (Oct) Janusz Kozinski appointed 2017 (March) LEP awards £8M 2017 (May) Janusz Kozinski started 2017 (July) City of Culture bid decision: not short-listed 2017 (Dec) Government consultation on Accelerated degrees (set up by Jo Johnson) 2017 (Nov) DfE confirmed £14.96M 2017 (Nov) Elena Rodriguez-Falcon appointed as CAO and Provost 2018 Cargill & Faccenda become Avara 2018 (Jan) Jo Johnson replaced as Universities Minister by Sam Gyimah 2018 (May) Janusz departed 2018 (May) Submission to OfS 2018 (October) Inauguration


Appendix 2: Founders Fund members Of these founding donations of £5000 or more, just under half came from private individuals and

just over half from businesses or trusts.

3 Anonymous Corporations 4 Anonymous Individuals ABT Products Ltd Acre Accountancy Ltd. Active Rights Management Alex Aftalion Architype Ltd. Arctic Circle Ltd. Guy Baring Charitable Trust Barrs Court Engineering Ltd. Bartonsham Dairies Bathgate Flooring Ltd. Dr Patrick and Dr Maureen Beauchamp Viscountess Boyd Charitable Trust Brightwells Ltd. British Cassis – Whittern Farms Ltd. British Land – Old Market Hereford Philip and Margaret Brown Julia Budd E F Bulmer Benevolent Fund Howard Bulmer Charitable Trust Cargill Meats Europe Chris Carter and Stuart Donachie Michael Chesshire Edward and Tamsin Clive Collins Design and Build Corbett Farms Ltd. Corbett Farms Ltd. C2UK The Earl and Countess of Darnley Charles and Sarah de Rohan Victoria Dickinson Eastnor Castles Estates Mark and Kate Edwards Jenny and Tony Ellerton Mark Ellis EMS Ltd. ETL Systems Ltd. Robert Wyatt and Lucy Ewing Ian and Jeanie Falconer Four Acre Trust Roger and Liz Gates Richard and Cary Goode Ange Grunsell

Mr and Mrs Antony Hichens Griffith Holliday Nat and Laura Hone Charles and Sarah Ingleby Impact Print & Design Ltd. Kelso Consulting KGD Industrial Services Kingspan Insulation Lanyon Bowdler LLP Lord Lisvane and Rev Lady Lisvane Christina Belloc Lowndes AJ Lowther & Sons Noel and Nienke Manns Glyn Morgan Muddy Boots Software The Naked Creative David Nolan Jesse Norman and Kate Bingham Orchard Valley Foods Ltd. P&M Group Ltd. In Memory of Oscar Pearce-Higgins Perrett Laver Blair Priday Prometheus Medical Ltd Individual Founder I. Joan Ritchie Rotary Club of the City of Hereford RWB Global S&A Group Sanders Polyfilm Nicola and Ian Saunders Schaeffler (UK) Ltd. Sequani Non Clinical Keith and Ann Shawcross In Memory of George Sheppard MA FICE FIWE Martin Stratford Systems Engineering & Assessment Ltd. Ian and Gill Tait Bob Tabor Trust Ian Thompson Thorne Widgery Tomhead Ltd. TRP Sealing Systems Ltd. Vicki and Stephen Wegg-Prosser


Haigh Group Ltd. Edward and Victoria Harley Harrison Clark Rickerbys Haygrove Ltd. Hayley Group Ltd. Monique Heijn HFT Forklifts Ltd.

H Weston & Sons Ltd. In Memory of George Baillie OBE AMIEE and Philip Willmott BSc AMIMechE Wye Valley Brewery Wye Valley Group Andrew and Shelagh Wynn Yieldstone Ltd.

Appendix 3: Trustees of HTET and NMiTE

Herefordshire Tertiary Education Trust Incorporated December 2013 Trustees David Sheppard (chair Dec 2013 - ) Karen Usher (Dec 2013 - ) Lucy Armstrong (July 2014 - May 2016) Shelagh Wynn (July 2014 - Nov 2015) David Nolan (secretary May 2015) Sir Alan Wilson (Nov 2015 - May 2016) Rod Barker (Dec 2013 - March 2016) Ken Temple (Sept 2016 – Dec 2018) Ian Falconer (Sept 2016 - ) Toby Kinnaird (Sept 2016- ) Mark Edwards (Sept 2016 - ) Tony Martin (Jan 2016 -Sept 2016; Feb 2018 -) Caroline Townley (Nov 2016 -Sept 2017)

New Model in Technology and Engineering Incorporated December 2013 Trustees David Nolan (Nov 2016 -, secretary ) Ian Falconer (May 2107 -) Jon Gorringe (April 2018 -) Fiona Kendrick (July 2017 -, chair) Peter Scott (Jan 2018 - ) David Sheppard (Dec 2013 - ) Eric Thomas (July 2017 - ) Karen Usher (Dec 2013 -) Rod Barker (Dec 2013 - Dec 2015) Alan Wilson (Nov 2015 - Sept 2016) Ken Temple (May 2017 - May 2018) Janusz Kozinski (July 2017 -Jan 2018)

Appendix 4: Principal Volunteers, among many others

Rod Barker Ian Falconer Kel Fidler Peter Goodhew David Helfand Toby Kinnaird Rick Miller

Jesse Norman David Nolan David Sheppard Mark Somerville Jessica Townsend Karen Usher Shelagh Wynn


Appendix 5: Universities surveyed and studied as innovators Aalborg University Denmark Amsterdam University College Netherlands Aston University UK Cornell tech USA d.school Stanford USA Delft University Netherlands Florida Polytechnic University USA Harvey Mudd College USA Jacobs University Germany Lassonde School York University Canada McMaster University Canada Olin College of Engineering USA Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile Chile Purdue University USA Quest University Canada Singapore University of Technology Singapore UCL UK University of Aarhus Copenhagen University of Cape Town S Africa Zeppelin University Germany


Appendix 6: The network of contacts and consultees

The three major nodes for the eighty or so contacts depicted here were Jesse Norman, David

Sheppard and Karen Usher. However there were other important facilitators who were able to

reach out to multiple helpful people: These included Sir Nigel Thrift, Rick Miller and Blair Priday.

Further short details of all the people mentioned in this story are to be found in Appendix 7.


Appendix 7: Short biographies of those mentioned in the text. (Engineers highlighted in blue)

Allan Professor Dave Allan, Founding Faculty, appointed August 2018; previously at Harper Adams University, MMU graduate in Design & Technology

Appleton Abigail Appleton, Principal of Hereford College of Art since 2015, formerly Creative Director BBC Learning, Oxford graduate in English

Armstrong Lucy Armstrong, CEO of The Alchemists business consultants, Oxford PPE graduate

Atkins Professor Dame Madeleine Atkins CBE, President of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge since 2018, Chief Executive of HEFCE 2014-2018, previously Vice Chancellor of Coventry University, Cambridge graduate in Law and History

Augustine Norm Augustine, US aerospace businessman, founding CEO and Chairman of Lockheed Martin, US Under Secretary of the Army 1975-77, author of Augustine’s Laws, Princeton graduate in Aeronautical Engineering

Bekhradnia Bahram Bekhradnia, Director Higher Education Policy Institute from 2002, previously Director of Policy for HEFCE, Oxford graduate

Bhattacharyya Lord (Kumar) Bhattacharyya CBE FRS FREng, Professor of Manufacturing Systems and Head of WMG at the University of Warwick, graduated from IIT Kharagpur and Birmingham. Died February 2019.

Bingham Kate Bingham, venture capitalist and Managing Partner at biotech investor SV, Oxford and Harvard graduate in biochemistry

Blagg Woody Blagg, artist and owner of Hereford company The Blagg Trading Co Ltd (dissolved 2012), Cambridge graduate

Brown J Julia King, Baroness Brown of Cambridge FREng FRS, former Vice Chancellor of Aston University, previously Engineering Director of Rolls Royce Marine, Cambridge graduate in Natural Sciences

Brown P Peter Brown, Chief Executive of Hereford Housing Group until 2017, Birmingham City graduate

Burnett Sir Keith Burnett CBE FRS, Vice Chancellor of the University of Sheffield 2007-2018, Oxford graduate in Physics

Campbell Sir Colin Campbell DL, Vice Chancellor of the University of Nottingham 1988-2008, graduated in Law from Aberdeen.

Clark Dr Greg Clark MP, Secretary of State for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy since 2016, Minister of State for Universities, Science and Cities 2014-2015, economics graduate of LSE and Cambridge

Cook Dr Michael Cook FREng, structural engineer at Buro Happold, graduate of engineering from Cambridge

Croft Professor Stuart Croft, VC and President of University of Warwick from 2016, political scientist who graduated from the University of Southampton

Dangerfield Christian Dangerfield, capital portfolio manager and accountant who has worked for Cheyne, Cazenove and Govett, graduated in history from Oxford

Darnley Susan Bligh, Countess of Darnley CStJ, farmer and landowner, Lord Lieutenant of Herefordshire since 2008

Docherty David Docherty OBE, writer and media executive, Chief Executive of NCUB (National Centre for Universities and Business) until 2018, graduate of Strathclyde and LSE.

Dyson Sir James Dyson OM CBE FRS FREng, businessman, Provost of the Royal College of Art from 2011 to 2017, studied at the RCA

Ennew Professor Christine Ennew, Provost of Warwick University since 2016, Professor of Marketing, graduate of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, graduate in History


and Economics from Cambridge, PhD in Agricultural Economics from Nottingham.

Falconer Ian Falconer, partner in law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, trustee of HTET, Oxford graduate

Fidler Professor Kel Fidler FREng, electronics expert, former Vice-Chancellor of Northumbria University and past Chair of the Engineering Council, graduate of Durham (BSc in Electrical Engineering) and Newcastle (PhD)

Goldberg Professor David Goldberg is a computer scientist and civil engineer at the department of Industrial & Enterprise Systems Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He graduated from the University of Michigan

Gombrich Professor Carl Gombrich, programme director for Arts & Sciences Degree at UCL, degrees in Maths, Physics and Philosophy from King’s College London, sometime opera singer

Goodhew Professor Peter Goodhew CBE FREng, materials engineer, past PVC and Dean of Engineering at the University of Liverpool, Trustee of Royal Academy of Engineering, graduated from University of Birmingham

Gorringe Jonathan Gorringe ACMA, Finance Director at the University of Edinburgh until 2012,

Grant Sir Malcolm Grant CBE FAcSS, Chairman of NHS England, former President of UCL, law degrees from University of Otago, NZ

Greening Justine Greening MP, Secretary of State for Education from July 2016 to January 2018, graduated from Southampton in Economics and Accounting

Helfand Professor David Helfand, astrophysicist at Columbia University and President of Quest University, Canada from 2008-2015. Graduated from University of Massachusetts Amherst

Hood Sir John Hood KNZM, Vice Chancellor of Oxford 2004 to 2009, educated at University of Auckland and Oxford. PhD in Civil Engineering

Hughes Geoff Hughes, Economic Development Director of Herefordshire Council until September 2018, graduated in Urban and Regional Planning from Coventry University

Jackson Bill Jackson, Chairman of Hereford Enterprise Zone from 2012 to 2018

Johnson J Jo Johnson MP, Minister of State for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation May 2015 to January 2018. Graduated from Oxford in Modern History

Johnson T Tony Johnson, retired bank director, Leader of Herefordshire Council 2013 to March 2018

Kealey Terence Kealey, biochemist with degree from St Bartholomew’s and a DPhil from Oxford. Vice Chancellor of University of Buckingham from 2001 to 2014

Kendrick Dame Fiona Kendrick, Chairman and Chief Executive (until 2017) of Nestlé UK & Ireland, Chair of the NMiTE Board, brought up in Hereford

Kingman Sir John Kingman, Chair of UK Research & Innovation, Chairman of Legal & General plc until 2016 Second Permanent Secretary to HM Treasury

Kinnaird Toby Kinnaird, CEO of Barrs Court Engineering in Hereford, graduated in Manufacturing Engineering from Nottingham, “Engineer in Residence” at NMiTE since 2017

Kozinski Janusz Kozinski, Founding President of NMiTE, July 2017 to June 2018, former Founding Dean of Lassonde School of Engineering, Canada, graduated from Krakow University of Science and Technology

Landsman Dr David Landsman OBE, Director of Tata, British Ambassador to Greece until 2013, graduate of Oxford, PhD in linguistics from Cambridge


Lester Jonathan Lester, Leader of Herefordshire Council from 2018

Letwin Sir Oliver Letwin MP, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster 2014 to 2016, graduated from Cambridge with a degree and PhD in Philosophy

Lisvane Robert Rogers, Baron Lisvane of Blakemere in Herefordshire, sometime Clerk of the House of Commons, life peer who sits on the cross benches of the House of Lords, graduated from Oxford in Old Norse, Welsh and Anglo-Saxon

Mayfield Sir Charlie Mayfield, Chairman of the John Lewis Partnership since 2007, graduated from Sandhurst

Miller Dr Richard (Rick) Miller, Founding President of Olin College since 1999, graduated in engineering from University of California Davis, MIT and CalTech

Morgan Dr Rhys Morgan, Director of Engineering and Education at Royal Academy of Engineering, graduated in engineering from University of Liverpool

Myers Frank Myers MBE, health sector businessman, Chairman of Herefordshire Business Board, apprentice who graduated in engineering from Loughborough University

Neill Alistair Neill, Chief Executive, Herefordshire Council

Nolan David Nolan CPFA MoID, NMiTE Company Secretary, accountant previously with Bath City Council

Norman Dr Jesse Norman MP, Minister of State for Transport since November 2018, MP for Hereford and South Herefordshire, graduated from Oxford in Classics followed by a PhD at UCL

Osborne George Osborne, Editor of the London Evening Standard, Chancellor of the Exchequer 2010 to 2016, graduated from Oxford in Modern History

Parker Anthea Parker, Head of Strategic Planning at NMiTE since June 2017

Peake Ian Peake, Principal of North Shropshire College, Principal of Herefordshire and Ludlow College from 2004 to 2018, member of The Marches LEP

Perkins Professor John Perkins CBE FREng, former Vice President and Dean of Engineering at the University of Manchester, author of the BIS Review of Engineering Skills in 2013

Rodriguez-Falcon

Professor Elena Rodriguez-Falcon, Provost, Chief Academic Officer and

Distinguished Professor in Engineering Education from February 2018 to

November 2018, President and CEO from November 2018, previously in Dept

of Mechanical Engineering, University of Sheffield, graduate of Universidad

Autonoma de Nueva Leon and Sheffield

Rogers Dr Helen Rogers, Academic Programme Manager from 2017; Professor and Founding Faculty from August 2018, previously at Institute for Aviation and the Environment, Cambridge, Imperial College and Oxford physics graduate

Scott Professor Peter Scott FRSC CChem, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Warwick, member of the NMiTE Board, graduate of Salford and Oxford

Sheppard David Sheppard of David Sheppard Associates a marketing and communications consultancy, Chairman of Realwire, graduated in Geology

Somerville Dr Mark Somerville, Dean of Faculty and Professor at Olin College with degrees in Electrical Engineering from University of Austin and MIT and in Physics from Oxford.

Stevenson Michael Stevenson, consultant, former Director of Factual and Learning at the BBC

Stuart Professor Mary Stuart CBE, Vice Chancellor of the University of Lincoln, graduate of the University of Cape Town in social policy with a PhD from the Open University


Sykes Sir Richard Sykes FRS HonFREng, biochemist, Chairman of Glaxo Smith Kline until 2002, Rector of Imperial College from 2001 to 2008, Chairman of the Royal Institution, graduated from Queen Elizabeth College and Bristol

Tavinor Michael Tavinor, Dean of Hereford Cathedral since 2002, organ scholar and graduate of Durham University and Cambridge

Thomas Sir Eric Thomas FMedSci, gynaecologist, Vice Chancellor of The University of Bristol from 2001 to 2015, Vice-chair of the NMiTE Board, graduated from Newcastle

Thomas Professor Pam Thomas, physicist and PVC for Research at the University of Warwick, graduated in Physics from Oxford

Thrift Sir Nigel Thrift DL FBA FAcSS, geographer, Vice Chancellor of The University of Warwick from 2006 to 2016, graduated from Aberystwyth and Bristol

Townsend Dr Jessica Townsend, Associate Provost and Professor of Engineering at Olin College, degrees in Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering from UMass Amherst, UC Davis and MIT

Usher Karen Usher DL, Chairman and Founder of TPO Inc, Founding Director and Trustee of NMiTE, graduate din Liberal Arts from Dartmouth College

Webb Dr Jeff Webb, Founding Faculty Professor from August 2018, previously at Intellectual Property Office, physics graduate of Portsmouth and Strathclyde

Wiggin Bill Wiggin MP, MP for North Herefordshire since 2010, graduated from Bangor University in Economics

Willetts Lord (David) Willetts, Minister of State for Universities and Science from 2010 to 2014, graduated from Oxford in PPE

Wilson Sir Alan Wilson FRS FBA FAcSS, professor at UCL and Vice-Chancellor of The University of Leeds from 1991 to 2004, graduated in Mathematics from Cambridge

Witty Sir Andrew Witty, CEO of GSK from 2008 to 2017, currently Chancellor of the University of Nottingham, from which he graduated in Economics

Wynn Shelagh Wynn, retired doctor specialising in epilepsy, Trustee of HTET from 2014 to 2015

Appendix 8: Abbreviations

AIMLED Accelerated Integrated Masters Liberal Engineering Degree

BEIS UK Government Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy

CAO Chief Academic Officer

CDIO Conceive, Design, Implement and Operate (cdio.org)

COO Chief Operating Officer

DfE Department for Education

ERDF European Regional Development Fund

HCA Hereford College of Arts

HEFCE Higher Education Funding Council (now replaced by OfS)

HTET Herefordshire Tertiary Education Trust

ICE Institution of Civil Engineers

IET Institution of Engineering and Technology

IPPR Institute for Public Policy Research

LEP Local Enterprise Partnership


MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology

NMiTE New Model in Technology and Engineering

OfS Office for Students (UK)

PBL Problem Based Learning

PVC Pro Vice Chancellor

QAA Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education

RDA Regional Development Agency (abolished in 2010)

SEFI European Society for Engineering Education

TDAP Taught Degree Awarding Powers

UCAS University Central Admissions Agency (UK)

UCL University College London

Appendix 9: NMiTE Declaration of Principles

Publicly confirmed in Hereford Cathedral Friday 19 October 2018

NMiTE – A New Kind of University NMiTE will be a new kind of university and a new way of learning, focused on human-centred

engineering. Our approach ranges across disciplines; integrates deeply with creativity of design and

expression; and is imbued with an understanding of the commercial and societal contexts required

to conceive and achieve the best engineering solutions.

NMiTE will use its unique freedom and agility as a completely new institution to search out and draw

on the best of ideas, wherever they might be found; to transform the understanding of what an

engineering education can be and how it can most engagingly and effectively be delivered; to seek

out the free spirits and open minds who can successfully participate in and benefit from it, and

whose diversity fully reflects the society which they will serve.

NMiTE is created for and with Engineers, at all points in their evolution as professionals, who seek to

be liberated to think innovatively and have the confidence to try different ways of doing; who will be

experienced at working in teams, inhabiting and respecting different perspectives; for whom

engagement with business and society is a wholly integrated part of their learning and practice; and

who approach problems with a different mindset. They may participate in NMiTE through its

accelerated interdisciplinary degree programme, as degree apprentices, or for continuing

professional development – variable yet integrated pathways embodying NMiTE’s commitment to

engineering for life.

NMiTE is created to meet the needs of Employers, small and large and in a range of industries and

professions, for whom NMiTE is addressing a vital and shared concern about the future of

engineering; and created with employers who through their input into the academic programme,

contribution to learning, provision of projects, provision of placements and participation in its

governance, seek to support and sustain a new approach to engineering education.


NMiTE is created with Employees, academic and non-academic, passionate about learning and

development – their own and others – and who thus are committed to enabling world-class learning;

who harness and deliver the best “learning by doing” practices empowered by a radically new

curriculum structure and learning and operating environment; and who evaluate learners by who

they are, what they have achieved and what they can accomplish.

NMiTE will eclipse the traditional models of learning and operation by engaging with its Engineers in

a life-long partnership of shared learning and experience, to absorb the lessons and challenges of

NMiTE’s development, and those of our changing world, as a means of continuously developing and

future-proofing NMiTE, to sustain its ability to deliver grounded life-long learning, and to endure as

an ever-evolving work-in-progress.

We therefore here set out the shared principles, values and behaviours which will be embodied in

NMITE’s constitution; which NMiTE and its Engineers, Employees and participating Employers will

commit to observe and expect of each other; and which will ensure they have a real voice in NMiTE’s

design, operation and future development.

Shared Principles, Values and Behaviours

• To act at all times towards all others participating in NMiTE with respect and humility and to

adhere to the highest levels of institutional governance and financial management.

• To develop and maintain at NMiTE a learning and living environment where each voice, from

whatever perspective, is invited and free to speak and live without fear; where every voice is

considered to be equally important; where challenging opinions may be expressed and heard;

and where any voice may speak or disagree openly with confidence that others will listen

patiently and respectfully.

• To commit and engage fully as an active citizen of the NMiTE community; motivated by concern

for others; focused on selfless contribution and giving back; and communicating and behaving

honestly and truthfully at all times and in all circumstances.

• To take personal responsibility for making an individual contribution to NMiTE and the

community which it embodies, and to deeply engage with and play an energetic and fully

contributing part in teams working together to develop and sustain NMiTE.

• To listen carefully and reflectively in order to develop and maintain a learning programme and

working environment which incorporates the input of and delivers meaningfully to all of

NMiTE’s Members.

• To support the evolution and delivery of a programme of engineering education that is truly

interdisciplinary within the profession and truly liberal in the integration of other disciplines,

knowledge and skills; which is accessible to learners with different learning styles and at

different points in their learning; and which inspires a profound and deep understanding of

engineering and the real world contexts in which engineering is done.

• To embrace change and renewal in the continuous evolution of NMiTE’s academic and other

programmes and operations, creating and supporting an active and mutually rewarding

relationship of lifelong learning; to constantly seek and learn from global best practices; and to

set a standard for and commitment to sharing new and better approaches to learning.


• To develop, evolve and deliver life- and career-changing engineering education, in a learn-by-

doing safe-to-fail environment; encouraging and supporting engineers who will be known by

their qualities as NMiTE Engineers: resilient, curious, creative, innovative, empowered, team-

focused, entrepreneurial, thoughtful, proud, and highly capable.

• To commit to working and engaging openly with and within Hereford and the Communities of

Herefordshire to help build and support an economic and educational ecosystem; to think and

behave from a partnership and collaboration perspective, understanding the implications for

and respecting input from the community; and seeking to deliver for the collective good.

Index

Aberystwyth ............................................ 20, 47 Accelerated ....................... 8, 13, 22, 26, 36, 48 AIMLED .................................................... 26, 48 A-level ....................................................... 7, 15 Allan, Dave ........................................ 28, 31, 43 Appleton, Abigail ............................... 20, 36, 43 Armstrong, Lucy ................................ 24, 39, 43 Augustine, Norm ..................................... 36, 43 Avara ....................................................... 20, 36 Barker, Rod.............................................. 39, 40 Bhattacharya, Kumar .................................... 28 Bhattacharyya, Lord ................................ 28, 43 Bingham, Kate ................................... 11, 38, 43 Bligh, Donald ........................................... 13, 44 Blocks ...................................................... 13, 25 Bristol, University of .................... 11, 32, 34, 47 Buckingham, University of .................. 3, 13, 45 Bulmers ................................................... 20, 36 Cambridge ......................... 8, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47 Campus ............................................... 9, 16, 18 cap ................................................................... 8 Cargill ................................................ 20, 36, 38 CDIO .................................................. 24, 30, 48 Chartered Engineer ............................. 9, 25, 31 Chester .................................................... 19, 30 Chichester ..................................................... 31 Clark, Greg ......................................... 23, 38, 43 Collaboratory .......................................... 12, 24 Cook, Mike .................................... 6, 25, 31, 43 Costain .......................................................... 25 Coventry, University of ............... 15, 31, 43, 45 Credits ............................................................. 8 Croft, Stuart ...................................... 11, 28, 44 Curiosity ........................................................ 15 Cyber ............................................................. 21

Darnley, Lady .............................. 22, 30, 38, 44 Design ..................................... 6, 11, 12, 20, 26 Design Cohort ....................... 14, 17, 19, 26, 32 Dyson, Sir James ..................... 6, 23, 29, 31, 44 Edwards, Jo ........................... 13, 24, 25, 38, 39 Engineering ... 1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16,

17, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 43, 46

Ennew, Christine ..................................... 28, 44 Falconer, Ian ................... 23, 36, 38, 39, 40, 44 Fees ............................................... 8, 31, 32, 36 Fidler, Kel 23, 24, 25, 26, 29, 30, 31, 34, 36, 40,

44 Founder ........................... 10, 11, 18, 22, 33, 38 GCHQ ............................................................ 21 Gender balance ....................................... 14, 27 Gloucester ..................................................... 19 Goldberg, David ...................................... 12, 44 Gombrich, Carl ........................................ 15, 44 Goodhew, Peter ... 1, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 24, 25,

26, 29, 30, 31, 36, 40, 44 Gorringe, Jon ..................................... 23, 39, 44 Government ................ 8, 21, 22, 23, 33, 36, 48 Green book ....................................... 21, 23, 33 Greening, Justine .................................... 23, 44 Grit ................................................................ 15 Heineken ................................................. 20, 36 Helfand, David ................ 12, 13, 25, 30, 40, 44 Hereford Cathedral ..... 1, 3, 7, 8, 19, 21, 22, 47 Hereford College of Art ............... 20, 21, 36, 48 Herefordshire Council .. 8, 9, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24,

30, 32, 44, 45, 46, 48 Herefordshire Tertiary Education Trust (HTET)

.............................. 24, 26, 36, 39, 44, 47, 48 Hood, Sir John ............................................... 45


IET...................................................... 24, 26, 48 iFoundry ........................................................ 12 IMechE .................................................... 24, 26 Institute ............................. 6, 17, 29, 43, 46, 48 Integrated ......................... 7, 15, 16, 26, 31, 48 Jesse Norman .................................................. 1 John Lewis ........................................... 7, 26, 45 Johnson, Jo ...................... 21, 22, 23, 31, 36, 45 Kealey, Terence ................................. 13, 36, 45 Kendrick, Dame Fiona ................. 26, 30, 39, 45 Kinnaird, Toby ................. 24, 31, 36, 39, 40, 45 Kozinski, Janusz .. 14, 24, 25, 27, 28, 30, 31, 36,

39, 45 Lectures ..................................... 7, 8, 12, 13, 25 LEP ............................. 21, 22, 23, 27, 36, 46, 48 Lester, Jonathan ...................................... 21, 45 Letwin, Oliver ............................................ 9, 45 Liberal .. 7, 10, 15, 16, 20, 22, 25, 26, 30, 47, 48 Liberal Engineering ............... 10, 15, 16, 26, 48 Liberal Science ........................................ 10, 15 Lincoln ............................................... 19, 31, 47 Lisvane, Lord ................................................. 45 Liverpool, University of ............... 25, 30, 44, 46 Manchester ............................................. 31, 46 Manufacturing ............................ 12, 20, 24, 36 Mappa Mundi................................................ 20 Marches, The ............ 17, 19, 21, 22, 23, 27, 46 Martin, Tony ...................................... 38, 39, 43 Mathematics ............................. 7, 8, 14, 15, 34 Mayfield, Charlie ..................................... 26, 45 MEng ....................................... 8, 13, 16, 22, 26 Mentor .................................................... 16, 28 Miller, Richard (Rick) .. 6, 12, 24, 31, 36, 40, 41,

45 Miodownik, Mark ............................................ 6 Morgan, Rhys ................................ 6, 25, 38, 46 New College of the Humanities ...................... 3 Nolan, David .................... 23, 36, 38, 39, 40, 46 Norman, Jesse .... 3, 7, 9, 10, 11, 20, 23, 29, 30,

31, 34, 36, 38, 40, 41, 46 OfS ................................................. 8, 32, 37, 48 Olin College .... 6, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 24, 28, 32,

36, 40, 45, 46, 47 Osborne, George ........................... 6, 23, 36, 46 Oxford ............... 7, 8, 25, 30, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47 Parker, Anthea ........................................ 26, 46 Passion .......................................................... 15 PBL....................................................... 8, 31, 48 Perkins, John ..................................... 24, 25, 46 Physics ........................................... 7, 14, 46, 47 Pioneer Cohort .............................................. 32

President .... 1, 6, 12, 14, 24, 25, 27, 31, 33, 43, 44, 45, 46

Priday, Blair ............................................. 38, 41 Problem-based-learning ................................. 8 Projects ..................................... 6, 7, 13, 16, 25 Provost ........................ 1, 28, 31, 36, 44, 46, 47 Qinetiq .......................................................... 21 Quest University ............. 11, 12, 13, 16, 40, 44 Research ................................. 3, 13, 17, 23, 28 Robbins Report ............................................... 3 Robert of Lorraine, Bishop .............................. 8 Rodriguez-Falcon, Elena .. 1, 14, 28, 30, 31, 36,

46 Roger of Hereford ........................................... 8 Rogers, Helen ........................ 25, 26, 28, 33, 46 Rolls Royce .............................................. 25, 43 Rotherwas ..................................................... 18 Royal Academy of Engineering 6, 9, 24, 25, 30,

44, 46 Scott, Peter ....................................... 28, 39, 46 SEFI .......................................................... 24, 48 Sheffield, University of .. 11, 25, 30, 31, 32, 43,

46 Sheppard, David ... 3, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 23, 24,

26, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41, 46 Shirehall ........................................................ 18 Sixth Form College .................................. 20, 21 Skills gap ......................................................... 9 Skylon Park .................................................... 21 Somerville, Mark ......................... 12, 31, 40, 46 Sprints ..................................... 7, 13, 15, 25, 26 Stevenson, Michael ........................... 13, 24, 47 Tavinor, Michael ..................................... 21, 47 Team .....3, 6, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19,

21, 22, 23, 24, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34 Technology ................................................ 9, 17 Temple, Ken .................................................. 39 Thomas, Pam .......................................... 28, 47 Thomas, Sir Eric........................... 11, 27, 39, 47 Thrift, Sir Nigel .......... 11, 12, 13, 28, 36, 41, 47 Timeline .................................................... 3, 36 Townley, Caroline ......................................... 39 Townsend, Jessica ....................... 12, 31, 40, 47 UCL ............ 6, 14, 15, 30, 31, 40, 44, 46, 47, 48 university ........................................................ 3 University .. 1, 3, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 19,

20, 21, 23, 24, 27, 28, 30, 32, 34, 36, 40, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48

Usher, Karen .. 3, 10, 11, 15, 22, 24, 26, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34, 36, 39, 40, 41, 47

Vacation .......................................................... 7


Vision 3, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 26, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34

Walcher, Prior ................................................. 8 Warwick, University of3, 11, 12, 15, 16, 23, 24,

25, 27, 28, 29, 32, 34, 36, 43, 44, 46, 47 Webb, Jeff ............................................... 28, 47 White Paper ............................................ 22, 26 Wiggin, Bill .............................................. 22, 47

Willetts, David ................................... 22, 36, 47 Wilson, Sir Alan ....................................... 39, 47 Wolverhampton ............................................ 21 Women ............................................... 6, 14, 17 Worcester ......................................... 19, 21, 36 Wye ....................................... 17, 18, 20, 24, 39 Wynn, Shelagh .......... 13, 15, 24, 36, 39, 40, 47

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