President’s Address
Opening and Acknowledgements
My Lord Lieutenant, Mrs Harley, distinguished guests, colleagues, founders, supporters, families, friends, and - most importantly - our graduating class of 2025, welcome to the magnificent setting of Hereford Cathedral, where we mark an important milestone and celebrate some incredible achievements. In speeches like this it is customary to tell you, our graduates, that you stand at the threshold of new opportunities, but as most of you are now already well into your professional careers, I will just say well done for getting the day off.
It is an enormous privilege to address you as we celebrate this wonderful milestone together.
Before we look to the future, I do want to take a few moments to recognise those who have made today possible. NMITE was built on an ambitious vision - a belief that engineering education could be reimagined, that learning could be transformed, and that you, the students, could become the engineers and problem-solvers of tomorrow through an entirely new approach. This institution exists because of the relentless faith and support of our founders, our industry partners, and our wider community.
To all those who stood by us through the challenges, who believed in NMITE when it was still just an idea, and who continued to invest in its promise - you have not just built a university; today shows how you have shaped futures. Thank you.
There are too many founders and supporters to list in detail but I will name three. NMITE exists because of these three people: Karen Usher, David Sheppard and, of course, our new Chair Jesse Norman. You’ll hear from him later. My colleague, Lauren Fosterjohn, on a particularly chaotic day at work, recently described NMITE to me as a great idea that got out of control. That sometimes feels true, but it just describes that what started as your great idea in 2010 has finally arrived as something wonderfully real, thanks to your determination. Karen, David and Jesse – today is your achievement too and all I can say is I’m sorry it took so long!
This is NMITE’s first graduation ceremony, but I am not its first President and Chief Executive. I owe enormous thanks to those who came before me, particularly our previous Chairs, Dame Fiona Kendrick (who must take the blame for appointing me) and Terence Jagger, and my predecessor (and dear friend), Professor Elena Rodriguez-Falcon. Elena had the vision and drive to get this institution off the ground in the first place before handing it over to me with the cheerful and slightly sinister message “it mostly works, don’t mess it up”. But she’s remained a strong supporter ever since.
Planning and putting on an event like this takes the whole organisation and many supporters. But I do want to particularly thank the one colleague who led all that work. It’s fitting that she should organise our first ever graduation ceremony because she is also NMITE’s first ever employee. Thank you Anthea Parker.
And to all of my colleagues - you are the architects and builders of this success. You designed the programme, supported and inspired the students, and brought this great idea to life. Your dedication is what made today possible. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Grit and Determination
So, how did we get here?
Graduates, if there is one defining trait of your NMITE journey, it is grit. Grit is more than just staying power; it is the ability to push forward when challenges seem insurmountable. It is the courage to embrace uncertainty, to learn from failure, and to persist with purpose. You have spent years solving complex real-world problems, collaborating with industry, and learning by doing.
We threw many challenges at you. Some were intentional. But you worked together, in your teams, and you overcame those challenges. Some that many undergraduate students at long established universities would face, but also those associated with doing something innovative and different – for the first time. You took a risk, and you worked with us to make the place better. This is why we proudly describe you as our Pioneer Cohort. You are pioneers.
And you can now make one really important claim that other students really can’t. You can say that you helped shape and build the very university you are graduating from.
At NMITE, we believe in talent—not background. Some of you could have gone to the most prestigious universities. Others might never have been given a second glance by the traditional system. We want to find talent wherever it’s hiding - whatever form it takes, and whatever its story. That includes the ongoing work to increase the number of female students in engineering and technology, where women have always been outnumbered. It’s fair to say that that remains an ongoing project, but it’s another reason why we need to challenge the assumptions about who belongs in this field.
But what unites you all is that grit: that vital blend of perseverance, resilience, and sheer bloody-minded determination. We don’t look for the perfect A-levels. We look for the spark, the drive, the willingness to learn and the courage to keep going when it gets tough. Because talent is everywhere - sometimes hidden, sometimes underestimated - but it’s our job to find it and give it a place to thrive. NMITE exists to back those people. And you, graduates, are proof that when given the opportunity, talented people with that grit always deliver.
Widening Opportunities and the Open University
So, grit matters – but so does teamwork. The first will get you through the tough days but when it’s combined with the latter, it will get you through the long run. And it’s another vital component of the NMITE model.
I didn’t go to university in the usual way. I came to higher education later in life, through the Open University - another institution built on the then radical idea that learning should be for everyone, everywhere. I really struggled. I took on a science degree without a maths background – I won’t ever do that again. I remember wanting to sometimes weep in despair, testing whether equations would be easier when tackled after a bottle of wine. They weren’t – the numbers stayed the same, they just wobbled around more. I often thought I’d just made a big mistake, I might have overreached. But what saved me wasn’t just persistence - it was my fellow students (all similarly struggling) who said, “we just can’t quit now” who helped me, encouraged me, and we pulled each other through. It was that “we’re all in this together” attitude and that same spirit of support is something I’ve seen time and again at NMITE.
We are deeply grateful to the Open University for their support as our validating partner in our earliest days - they understood our mission and we became a much better institution because of our work with them when we were starting up. And I know many of you leaned on each other as I once was helped - through tough modules, confusing deadlines, and occasionally just getting out of bed. You made it here because you didn’t do it alone. And that is one of the most important lessons any engineer - or any human - can carry forward.
Staying True to Your Values
I’m sorry to say that you graduate into a world more complex and troubled than ever. Just this week, there are headlines about the terrible impacts of climate change—while governments scale back their commitments to address it. AI systems are advancing faster than governments can blink, let alone regulate, and conflicts around the world are straining alliances, and forcing difficult choices that challenge all of our ethics. You’re stepping into problems that don’t come with easy solutions—or sometimes any solution at all.
And I can’t offer you answers either. I wish I could. But that’s the point. No one can give you a manual for how to address these difficult issues. What we can do - and what NMITE has tried to do - is prepare you to work in ambiguity, to get used to the uncomfortable feeling of not knowing, to ask better questions, and to resist the pressure to reach for the simplest answer just because it’s there.
Sometimes we did this by design. Other times, it might have felt like we were just making it up as we went along—and occasionally, we were. But that’s part of the learning.
You’ve learned to listen harder, to work alongside people whose views you don’t share, and to collaborate with those you might fundamentally disagree with. That’s rarer than you’d think—and it’s a skill the world badly needs.
The ability to act with personal integrity when the right course isn’t obvious is one of the most important things you can take with you. So keep that moral compass switched on, and don’t wait for permission to use it. What you choose to do with what you’ve learned—where you apply your skills, who you work for, and why—will always be your call. And while your values should guide you, never assume those who make different choices have not been guided by theirs.
Alan Turing, a hero of mine, once said, “Sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.” When you finished the degree you’re receiving today, you might not have felt ready for the workplace. But I hope you now know that you were—and you are. Because we don’t just need engineers who can build things—we need engineers who know why they’re building them.
NMITE's Place in Herefordshire
Why Hereford?
Why did we do this Hereford?
If I ever get involved with the creation of another new university – and don’t worry, I won’t – it will be in a place like London or Manchester where there is plenty of infrastructure, everyone wants to go there, thousands of students already make up big chunks of the population – higher education is part of their civic make-up and people in Whitehall actually knows where they are.
Well, it is true that we did have to work hard to persuade some students to come to this place. I remember taking calls from prospective students asking what part of Hertford the university was in. I explained that it was in the part – that’s much further west with more cows and fewer Pret a Mangers. We have also had to work hard to persuade home-grown talent to consider degree level education in the first place – something fewer young people in this county have the opportunity to do than almost anywhere else in the country. We should all want to work together to address that.
Like many of you graduates, I moved to Hereford to take part in this university project having never been here before, not knowing what to expect. Also like many of you graduates, I quickly fell for this beautiful, lively, stubborn, slightly eccentric place.
Because places, like people, change with education.
Hereford is now a place where young student engineers and student artists bump into each other in cafes, where they share student accommodation (officially and unofficially) and they now work and socialise together. Our friends at Hereford College of Arts—who’s wonderful principal, Abigail Appleton, once affectionately described NMITE as their ‘precocious and rather noisy little brother’ - have helped build this emerging academic ecosystem in the city. Watching our engineers and their artists live together, collaborate and socialise together has brought colour, energy, and new thinking.
We are well on the way to proving that even small cities with little Higher Education tradition can be vibrant centres of learning and ambition.
We need to keep building on this – with urgency. It will transform this city for the better over the coming years.
Looking Ahead – Call to Action
Graduates, today you leave with more than a degree. You leave with experiences that have shaped you, a community that is proud of you and an institution that will always stand behind you. We look forward to a lifelong relationship with you. We also hope you will help us inspire the generations of students who will come after you. You are on our database!
As you walk across the stage today, you’ll pass the NMITE ceremonial mace. For those unfamiliar with university traditions, the mace signifies the institution’s authority over its members - it is permanent, and we are not. It also represents a university’s independence from external authority. Universities must be places where free speech and respectful debate happen - just look across the Atlantic to know this matters now more than ever.
NMITE’s mace is new, crafted single-handedly over months by one of NMITE’s founding faculty members and now emeritus Professor Dave Allan. You graduates know Prof Allan well, so whilst I like to think his exquisite work in building that mace from its more than a 1,000 individually crafted components was a labour of love for him, you will appreciate that it was probably just an excuse to avoid answering emails and attending committee meetings.
Graduates, today is a day to celebrate—and to enjoy seeing your course mates again. But soon, I encourage you to reflect not just on your achievements, but on what still needs doing. Employers -and the world - are not waiting patiently. The challenges are real: the climate emergency, inequality, the ethics of technology, and a growing number of people, including some politicians, who believe the answers are simple and certain. We need people like you - those who don’t pretend to have all the answers, but who are willing to hear different views, to ask better questions, and with the grit to get moving when others just want to talk. So today, look closely at that mace. Don’t just admire it - find the section where Professor Allan engraved three words that should stay with you, as they have with me: do more faster.
Congratulations, Class of 2025. Now get out there and get stuck in.
