Britain’s engineering businesses are helping provide the solutions to some of the world’s most pressing problems, such as how renewable energy and smart living can create a healthier planet; how big data and resource security can reduce conflict; and how improvements in agri-engineering can feed the world’s population.
But many believe that among their biggest challenges is a shortage of engineering graduates, especially those with the necessary breadth of skills needed as we stand on the cusp of the fourth industrial revolution, in which engineers are merging the physical and digital worlds.
To help tackle this shortage, a new specialist university is being built in Hereford called the New Model in Engineering and Technology (NMiTE), and its mission is to find, equip and empower a new generation of young minds to meet these challenges.
NMiTE is set to open to an initial “pioneer” intake of students in September, before its first full intake in autumn 2020, thanks to government funding of £23m and support from large and small engineering businesses across the UK, as well as the backing of partners such as Warwick University and Olin College of Engineering in Boston.
I’d like to tell you about it so your business can get involved, whether it’s in helping shape the curriculum to produce the skilled graduates you need, or even through setting your engineering challenges as real-world problems for our students to solve as part of their studies.
We’re going to be creating the most modern and radical engineering curriculum in the world – and we want the active involvement of you, the readers of Maintenance & Engineering, to help us shape it to make sure it provides the future skills Britain needs.
Let me tell you a little about it.
Our degree – a BSc will be completed in just two years – will be based on self-directed and self-determined learning to facilitate a flexible curriculum. Under our approach students will learn by creating, doing and solving real problems from employers: businesses such as yours. There will be no lectures and no formal textbooks, because these are poor ways to learn engineering, and no exams: just real-time assessment instead.
As opposed to learning to meet a certain percentage on a predetermined exam paper, the challenges these engineering students will face will be real challenges facing engineering and manufacturing businesses around the UK. In fact, the entire concept of NMiTE is that we exist to support your future, by supporting students in achieving excellence within your real-world environment.
Instead of leaving with a graded degree, graduates will leave with a vibrant and applicable portfolio bursting with completed projects, demonstrated skills and experience from an exciting internship with an industrial partner.
Young people are motivated by big concerns, and so are we. Our new university is developing a programme that will prepare interdisciplinary engineers for a world in which technology is changing who we are. This world needs engineers who create collaboratively, consider the consequences and communicate in a solution-driven and human way – with empathy, compassion, understanding and an excitement towards embracing positive change.
This is where we need your input, your problems, and your solutions, for us to continually develop and continually solve them.
We are not just creating and training engineers. NMiTE graduates will be strongly grounded in entrepreneurial thinking, business leadership and people skills; this is a new type of engineer for a brave new world. We want engineers who can contribute to your business growth, reputation and success, solving world issues in your name.
I am keen to hear from all types of engineering businesses about how to incorporate your ideas into our radical curriculum, and our students into your future recruitment needs.
I’d like to emphasise how important your input and involvement will be at this critical point in shaping the future of engineering in our country, so do get involved now by sending an email to me at info@nmite.org.uk.
I look forward to hearing from you!