Slides from workshop delivered at the Association for National Teaching Fellows' Annual Symposium, De Montford University, 20 April 2023. Abstract: The New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering is a new HEI. We’re a positive disrupter, challenging norms in university-level education by using and testing innovative new approaches, particularly in learning, teaching and widening access, to address the shortfall in numbers of engineering graduates in the UK. Part of NMITE’s mission is to share good practice and learning with the sector. This workshop will provide an overview of NMITE’s pedagogical innovations, and will facilitate a discussion with peers about the enablers and barriers to innovation and ways to overcome them. The session will facilitate good practice sharing and the chance for you to seek peer support and learn from new models to address challenges within your own institution. It will thus empower you to act as a more effective change agent, driving forward your NTF/CATE innovative practice. We will conclude with an opportunity for colleagues to feed into a QAA enhancement project, which the presenters are currently leading, to explore the interaction of innovation and quality assurance in HE.

1. Disrupting Thinking to
Enable Innovation
Professor Gary C Wood
Academic Director | gary.wood@nmite.ac.uk | @GC_Wood | www.garycwood.uk
Emma Lewis
Quality Assurance Manager | emma.lewis@nmite.ac.uk
New Model Institute for Technology & Engineering

2. NMITE and HE innovation
• New, small, specialist provider in Hereford – previously
had no Higher Education Institution
• Engineering and technology focus addresses UK
shortage of engineers – need to develop ‘work-ready’
engineers (RAEng (2007, 2010, 2019); Graham (2012);
Perkins (2013); IET (2019))
• Demand from industry for graduates with more
integrated engineering capabilities
• Intended to be a significant centre for innovative,
mould-breaking engineering education.

3. Our innovations in L&T
• Unusual entry requirements
• Industry-linked, challenge-led
learning experiences
• Learning 9-5 in a studio environment
• Block delivery model
• Substantial educator contact time
• Significant team-working
• Varied assessment strategy, related
to professional formats/outputs
• Graduates able to solve problems as
they’re encountered by professional
engineers.

4. Innovation in HE
• We have the benefit of building a
new institution with a brief to
innovate
• Innovation is easier starting with a
totally blank canvas
• We want to share our learning to
have wider impact – but we
recognise innovation is very
different in established
institutions…

5. What are the challenges
and barriers to innovation
in your context?

6. Challenges and barriers
• Small group discussions
• What barriers have you faced, or are you facing, to
innovation in L&T?
• Capture your thoughts on a flipchart
• 10 minutes.

7. Your top challenge/barrier
• Identify the biggest barrier at your table
• Write it in the centre of a new sheet of flipchart paper
• 2 minutes.

8. Sharing ideas and good practice
• Round robin – visit each of the tables
• Use the sticky notes
• Add ideas to help overcome the barriers
• Draw on your own practice and experience
• If you are comfortable with sharing more, include your
name and email address
• 10 minutes.

9. Feedback
• Back at your original table
• Review the sticky notes
• Prepare to share the ideas and your reflections with
the room
• 10 minutes.

10. Feedback
• Share the key ideas and what your takeaways are
linked to your challenge/barrier.

11. When Quality Assurance
Meets Innovation in
Higher Education
Funded enhancement project

12. The project
• Partners:
• New Model Institute for Technology & Engineering
• Ardern University
• Arts University Bournemouth
• TEDI-London
• UCL
• Drawing on new and established HE providers, aims to:
• Explore how QA processes facilitate and/or constrain
innovation in HE
• Illustrate successful approaches to QA that enable
innovation.

13. Can I be part of this?
• Yes, please!
• Sign up at:
https://forms.office.com/e/RAa5gviMu6
• We’ll be inviting participants for surveys and
focus groups
• We’re also looking for high-quality case studies:
• Examples of great procedures and/or productive and
positive cross-team relationships and ways of working
• Barriers when you have tried to innovate and how you
have managed/overcome them.

14. References
Engineering UK (2023). 115,000 More Girls Need to Study Maths or Physics A Levels to Bridge Gender Gap
in Higher Education. Retrieved from https://www.engineeringuk.com/news-views/115-000-more-girls-
need-to-study-maths-or-physics-a-levels-to-bridge-gender-gap-in-higher-education/
Graham, R. (2012). Achieving Excellence in Engineering Education: The Ingredients of Successful Change.
London: Royal Academy of Engineering.
The IET (2019). Skills and demand in industry: 2019 Survey. Stevenage: The Institution of Engineering and
Technology. Available at: www.theiet.org/media/4812/skills-survey2019.pdf.
Perkins, J. (2013). Professor John Perkins’s Review of Engineering Skills. Available at:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/2
54885/bis-13-1269-professor-john-perkins-review-of-engineering-skills.pdf
Royal Academy of Engineering. (2007). Educating Engineers for the 21st Century. London: Royal Academy
of Engineering.
Royal Academy of Engineering. (2010). Engineering Graduates for Industry. London: Royal Academy of
Engineering.
Royal Academy of Engineering. (2019). Engineering Skills for the Future: The 2012 Perkins Review
Revisited. London: Royal Academy of Engineering

15. Disrupting Thinking to
Enable Innovation
Professor Gary C Wood
Academic Director | gary.wood@nmite.ac.uk | @GC_Wood | www.garycwood.uk
Emma Lewis
Quality Assurance Manager | emma.lewis@nmite.ac.uk
New Model Institute for Technology & Engineering