Engineering change: Redefining STEM education at NMITE

Engineering education is evolving, and the New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering (NMITE) is leading the way. Breaking away from traditional models, NMITE champions real-world problem-solving, teamwork, and inclusivity, offering a fresh approach to creating future-ready engineers. In this interview with Research Outreach, we explore NMITE’s philosophy, innovative teaching methods, and its commitment to diversity in STEM.

How do you redefine engineering higher education for the demands of the 21st century? At NMITE, it’s about breaking from tradition, replacing lectures with immersive studio learning, swapping exams for real-world challenges, and embracing diversity over standardised entry requirements. We spoke with Dr Sarah Peers, Head of Academic Skills at NMITE and President of the International Network of Women Engineers and Scientists (INWES), to discover how the institute is preparing engineers to tackle global challenges, why humanities are as valuable as maths in engineering, and how their partnerships with industry are shaping the future of STEM in higher education.

NMITE is celebrated for breaking away from traditional education models. Could you tell us more about this approach and how it differs from traditional education?

One of the guiding principles for NMITE (New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering) is that it be a significant centre for innovative, mould-breaking university level engineering education. We encourage our students to explore the ways in which engineering is linked to society and other disciplines. The aim is to embed liberal studies in one way or another in all our university modules. We have a future focus: we want our engineering education to have a long-term value to our students. In addition, we integrate employers and community in our teaching and learning.

In practice, we have adopted block-based teaching and employ problem-solving and challenges as the drivers to learning in our modules. Our student engineers are based in studios during each module and largely work in teams. This provides an immersive experience, which is very different to the traditional model. Our students are very diverse, and we want them to come into professional engineering from as many different backgrounds and life-experiences as possible. We still need to work on the gender gap in engineering in the UK. If we want better engineering, we need to tap into all talent from all backgrounds, not just that of those who already identify as ‘techies’. We need a new type of engineer.

It may seem paradoxical, but this longer-term focus also leads to more work-ready graduates.

How does NMITE’s focus on real-world problem-solving and partnerships with employers prepare students for the challenges of the 21st century workforce?

Our studio model and emphasis on teamwork is much more akin to the real world of engineering work. They learn to work well with others, identifying their own and team members strengths and motivations, and developing project management skills on the way.

We do all we can to embed authentic assessment, by which we mean that students’ achieved learning is assessed through activities that replicate the requirements of the real world. So for example, we avoid exam-type assessment: we do not hold end-of-year exams.

The challenges presented to the students in the early modules are usually ones where experienced engineers can predict solutions. The later challenges, however, are often ‘wicked problems’, ie, ones where the obvious technological solutions can also cause further problems. They are messy! Often even our partners have no clear idea of what the solution could be. Our students must include in their thinking not just their knowledge of technology and applied science, but an awareness of societal needs, very practical business questions, and an awareness of 21st century global concerns.

Teamworking and messy questions develop collaboration, critical thinking and problem-solving skills – all hugely important to employers of professional engineers.

And the way in which our students interact with NMITE partners gives them a chance to develop quite high-level communication skills that are highly valued outside of higher education. Our partners report back how impressed they are with the solutions our students present; some have even taken those solutions into their companies.

Your role as the Head of Academic Skills at NMITE involves supporting students in unconventional ways. Could you tell us how the ASK Centre empowers learners to succeed academically and professionally?

The Academic Skills and Knowhow (ASK) Centre is a key component to the NMITE model of teaching and learning.

There are two facets to the ASK: what we say it does on the tin, and what goes unsaid but is also of value. The ASK Centre provides students with a drop-in and workshop space where they come to ask questions and take part in support sessions for transferable skills. We have defined four broad and overlapping categories of academic skills that we consider to be transferable and within the remit of the ASK: study and professional, digital and IT, communications and writing, and finally mathematics. Almost everyone worries about maths! The ASK Team all have very strong maths backgrounds, but we share the belief that maths is not the be all and end all of important transferable skills at NMITE. Students start off by coming to the ASK for maths support. Later in their programme, they typically begin to be much more concerned about communications skills and delivering assignments to the required quality.

The ASK also has lots of online resources and this supports the unsaid part of the learning: encouraging our students to drive their own learning. The workshops are optional and extra to the core sessions that are timetabled for the modules. We sometimes nudge and prompt with diagnostic activities linked to expectations for a module, but ultimately, students must decide what they need from the ASK. They will often drop in when under pressure, but we encourage them to treat us as an additional resource for learning and to offer their own areas of knowhow, developing the habit of consulting with the people around them and sharing their own expertise. Students also send in requests for workshops they would like to see to help them develop in areas of weakness or of interest. This really sets them up for their professional future and life-long professional development and learning.

As the President of INWES, what are your key priorities for advancing the participation of women in engineering and STEM on a global scale?

The International Network of Women Engineers and Scientists has a long-standing mission to build a better world: the full participation of women in all areas and levels of STEM is important, not just for women but for societies across the globe. Our flagship event, ICWES, the triennial International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists has been running since 1964, and ICWES20 will be held in the Philippines in September 2026.

I was elected towards the end of 2023 for the 2024–26 term. I am the 6th President of INWES since its inception in 2002 with the support of UNESCO. My predecessors are pioneering engineers, mould-breaking scientists, and recognised leaders in STEM education and policy, so I feel very honoured. Past and current INWES Directors and activists have already achieved so much, including supporting the creation of several new and important women in STEM networks in many coun tries, but there is still much more to do.

My Executive Committee now includes a Vice President for Youth Empowerment, Dr Vicky Kondi. Dr Kondi is an amazingly energetic climate change scientist currently at the African Institute of Mathematical Sciences who has huge ambitions to engage and involve younger women in INWES. We are intending to bring about more opportunities for early career STEM people to connect across borders and share projects and programmes that bring about change.

I am working to improve and strengthen the way we communicate with our members. INWES is a network of networks: most of our formal members are organisations that share our goals. There are many members of members who would like to be much involved with INWES and active internationally, but we do not necessarily have the infrastructure firmly in place to enable easy communication. Thankfully recent past Directors worked hard to obtain resources and support to create a skeleton IT system to manage our day-to-day records. But we are all volunteers, so I have set myself the goal of finding funding for a secretariat to be put in place by the end of my term in 2026.

Another area that is in my view crucial is that of partnerships and collaboration. INWES has formal links to several of the United Nations bodies, such as UNESCO, UNFCCC and ECOSOC. We take part in UN Women activities and events held by the Commission for the Status of Women. We also have agreements with the World Federation of Engineering Organisations and the World Federation of Scientific Workers. I would very much like our members of members to be supported in joint activities with the UN and global partners. This will be good not just for INWES but also for the professional and personal development opportunities for individual women in STEM: raising profiles, supporting networks and leading to more STEM women in leadership. And of course this will be good for the work of the UN: getting STEM women involved is a double whammy of better discussions and better policy-making.

NMITE emphasises inclusivity and encourages students from diverse backgrounds, even without traditional A-level qualifications in maths and physics – as with traditional engineering university course requirements. How does this philosophy align with your work in promoting diversity and gender equality in STEM? Are there any particular case studies that stand out?

It took me many years to understand how requiring mathematics and physics at entry to engineering in the UK is elitist. First of all, the UK suffers from a shortage of maths and physics teachers: this means that in practice, it is the schools in ‘leafy areas’, with the most resources, that will have a full complement of STEM teachers. This immediately puts children from struggling areas at a disadvantage. Secondly, there is still a degree of bias, unconscious and otherwise, against maths and physics and girls. There really shouldn’t be, given that girls in the UK have been outperforming boys for some time now, but attitudes and culture take a long time to shift.

Girls themselves sometimes take themselves out of the equation (pun intended), simply because they have a skewed view of what they could do. This is an outcome of how we all still treat boys and girls differently. The Institute of Physics has carried out some great work in this area for many years: they first looked at why girls were not taking up Physics at A-Level, and over time have dug right back to gender in primary schools. I am a great fan of their work.

I could also go on about how the UK education system for 16 to 19-year-olds does not help. In countries where 16-year-olds are not asked to specialise to the same extent as we ask here, there are fewer barriers into engineering. We see countries with bigger gender equity issues but with much higher proportions of women in engineering degree programmes, simply because they have not ruled themselves out too early by choosing subjects incompatible with entry to all STEM areas.

I know there will be many academics who will disagree vehemently with me when I say that maths training in engineering programmes is in fact largely irrelevant. I love mathematics and I do think my own mathematical training has set me up to think quite differently and creatively. But engineering in practice does not require the sort of (non-creative) maths that I was being asked to teach in my past roles in engineering courses. The typical engineering university programme will include a maths course where the emphasis is on techniques: how to do calculus, Laplace transforms, recipes to solve differential equations, statistics for engineering… In my experience, students learned the processes and procedures, but had little real comprehension of what maths can do. It is not unusual to find engineering graduates who are happy to be given a simple calculus problem to ‘solve’, but who would struggle to work with fractions. In addition, the majority of practicing engineers in industry that I have met have often told me that the last time they ever had to ‘do maths’ was at university. I am sure that is not quite true, but we have trained engineers to think of maths as being about the application of technique, and not about the broader aspects of maths.

What we do at NMITE is focus on being able to use mathematics as a language, exploring modelling with maths, and interpreting outputs. This is a slightly different emphasis that is more accessible to all, and much more relevant to engineering professionals. We leave the techniques to the computer and the maths experts. I want NMITE students to appreciate mathematical thinking, and if they wish to find out more about the details, all the better! But we should not assume that only maths and physics at school are essential for new engineers: humanities and the arts are also a great foundation. I want to see future engineers coming into NMITE with all sorts of interests and academic backgrounds. And of course, if we want innovative engineers then we need to tap into full diversity.

The partnership between NMITE and industry stakeholders is a cornerstone of its educational model. How do these collaborations influence curriculum development and student outcomes?

Without our partners, our teaching would be much poorer. Our partners provide the real world scenarios, those ‘wicked problems’ that my very able (who are also proper engineers) academic colleagues translate into challenges for problem-based learning.

NMITE listens to partners and stakeholders. We do this through NMITE’s Partnership Advisory Group meetings where representatives are asked for views, and though formal agreements in the case of companies providing the scenarios, industry visits and taking part activities in the studios. Informally, those of us with industry links will often invite our contacts to visit NMITE. It is very usual to have representatives from companies walking through NMITE studios and stopping to chat to students. If they stay still for long enough, we rope them into partnerships. If they stay too long, they recruit our graduates.

Sustainability and global problem-solving are central to NMITE’s mission. How do you see NMITE graduates contributing to addressing pressing global challenges, and how might INWES support these efforts?

Our first graduates are already proving themselves: they have moved on to an incredibly wide range of next steps. Some are very much focussed on sustainability or with organisations that value our graduates’ awareness of global issues and ability to approach problems holistically. They have managed to secure roles in a wide range of sectors, and with employers such as Balfour Beatty, Kier, Rehau, Oakwrights and Mondelez International.

NMITE has a local or regional focus but is very much about professional engineering education for global concerns. INWES is a global organisation that supports local, grassroots action. I love being part of both of these organisations. Both NMITE and the NMITE Women in STEM (NWS) student society are members of INWES. I had a big hand in encouraging NMITE to join of course. The NWS students however chose to become affiliated to INWES because they recognise the importance of the global lens. I am hoping the students in NWS will be very much more involved in the youth empowerment and global activities at INWES.

With over 30 years of experience in engineering education, what do you see as the most significant challenges and opportunities for institutions like NMITE in redefining the future of STEM education?

Thirty years ago, the people around me (and to be honest, me too) assumed that time was enough to rectify the gender balance in engineering. We all now know this not to be true: gender equality and the wider questions of diversity will not be resolved without intentional actions. This is a great opportunity for us: my colleagues at NMITE are all behind the push for widening access to higher education and better gender balance in engineering. This drive is also good for changing education.

The challenges are those to do with expectations and norms. Of course, NMITE engineering programmes have to meet the requirements of regulatory bodies, including the professional engineering institutions. To be fair, I only see supportive messages from external colleagues. Our external assessors and validators are very much on board with NMITE’s philosophy and principles, and they provide a great mix of challenging questions and supporting information. But I know I find it a challenge not to slip into ‘old style’ lecturing: the students, however, are very good at being vocal in what they hope from us. All of us in the NMITE Academic Team often question ourselves, we spend a lot of time revisiting how we assess, checking that we are providing our learners with the best environment we can, looking for new ways to deliver professional engineering education. NMITE’s model is hard work!