Following
their nose
Having offi cially inaugurated its £12m ‘Future Technology Centre’, the University of Portsmouth
has just taken on the third cohort of undergraduates in the multidisciplinary innovation
engineering course that is designed to allow students to direct their own learning path
After moving in to the new
building this year, both students
and the local community
will be able to draw on a
full suite of resources that includes
formal and informal meeting spaces,
simulation capability, sophisticated digital
collaboration tools, 3D printers and CT
scanners.
Course leader Dr Jovana Radulovic,
associate head of the school of
mechanical and design engineering,
says that the space was designed
to complement the university’s wellestablished
conventional courses in
mechanical, civil, design and electronic
engineering, which she says tend to
produce specialised graduates who may
nd work in multidisciplinary teams in later
life challenging.
She explains: “I personally have,
throughout my career, been fascinated by
how different students learn differently.
What works for one doesn’t work for
another. That’s human nature.” She
recalls that during her time as course
leader in mechanical engineering, she
would occasionally run across students
with so many interests that she felt
they were wasted on a conventional
programme. “I was inspired by my
students to create a better, more
engaging, course.”
So innovation engineering offers few
lectures. The vast majority of delivery
is problem-based practice, including
practicals and experimentation, so that
students become what she calls ‘active
participants’ in learning. The work is often
conducted in teams, within the context of
a select group; the rst intake was 10,
and now averages about 20 per year.
Topics include electronics, data analysis
and materials engineering. For a secondyear
project on robotics in medicine, for
example, students choose the direction of
travel. They have to come up with a new
idea, evaluate its feasibility from business
as well as ethical standpoints, consider
legislation and policy relative the market,
and then design and produce the technical
speci cation of the solution. The third year
includes work on an individual project.
ALTERNATIVES
Although still relatively unusual, provision of innovation engineering courses is growing in the UK.
Established courses include a two-year double masters run jointly by Imperial and RCA (Innovation
Design Engineering), as well as Queen Mary’s University of London (Design, Innovation and Creative
Engineering at BEng and MEng level) and the Open University’s Design and Innovation BA or BSc
course. New this academic year is UCL’s offering for graduates, Engineering with Innovation and
Entrepreneurship. Outside London, there is the Innovation and Technology Management course in
Bath. Also new is Cardiff’s Manufacturing Engineering Innovation Management MSc course.
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