Put your money where your mouth is!

For 15 years, the author pressed for a stronger design emphasis in engineering courses in his role with the Design Council, running a national student design competition, producing teaching resources, proposing design projects and generally promoting a different approach to engineering formation. For the last six years, he has been one of the Mechanical Engineering teaching staff at Imperial College. This paper looks at the challenge of having to put all those proposals and suggestions into practice. Did it work? What about all the other pressures as a staff member? Did he manage to 'put his money where his mouth is'? He thinks he has done so far, but there is still some way to go.