Dubbed NMiTE, it is the first in a wave of government-promoted higher education ‘challengers’, due to receive its initial intake of student engineers in September 2019.

“Britain desperately needs to boost productivity, technical skills and graduate employability,” said NMiTE chair of trustees Dame Fiona Kendrick. “This project, driven by employers, is contributing a potential solution to these challenges. NMiTE aims to be a centre for innovative engineering education that broadens participation, especially for women. Valuing engineering and social science equally, it will deliver life-long learning from apprentice through to postgraduate. What NMiTE offers to employers is competitive advantage in a market where success is constrained by limited availability of talent.”

According to Kendrick, speaking on the BBC’s Today programme, the elements of NMiTE are inspired by Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts, founded in 1997.

Backing for the currently-virtual NMiTE comes from “engineering businesses, the Herefordshire community, Herefordshire Council, the University of Warwick, Olin College, professional engineering bodies and the UK Government,” said NMiTE.

The Government recently announced up to £23million in initial funding, and featured NMiTE in its recent white paper Industrial Strategy: Building a Britain fit for the future. £8 million of funding for the project was awarded to the Marches Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) via its Growth Deal with Government – Growth Deals are awarded to LEPs through a competitive bidding process to fund the delivery of projects to boost the local economy.

Subject to validation, NMiTE will open its doors to what it describes as a pioneer cohort in September 2019. “By 2020, it’s expected that a minimum of 250 students will be based at a purpose-built city centre campus in Hereford. It intends to be educating more than 5,000 engineering students by 2032.

A ‘design cohort’ of 75 students has already been selected – some of which started work in September. They will attend one or more of three 14-16 week periods, starting September 2018, January 2019 and May 2019.

NMiTE will provide one engineering degree as opposed to having individual subjects – an ‘accelerated integrated engineering degree’ which will combine “creativity, design and innovation and incorporate learning in employability skills”, said the university. The aim is to achieve an MEng in three academic years of 46 weeks each. “Courses will be delivered using a ‘sprint’ approach, integrating technical and liberal components. Each sprint will contain multiple concepts resulting in a piece of evidence for student portfolios.”

The curriculum is still under development, however its four principal themes will be:

• Agri-engineering and food production
• Manufacturing and advanced manufacturing
• Big data and resources security
• Green, renewable and smart living

Project and team-based learning will be a core feature with challenges sourced from industry.