Designing for Impact: Professor Rachel Horn on Embedding Real-World Thinking into Engineering Education

Professor Rachel Horn's journey into engineering education began after a decade in industry, followed by a PhD and nearly 20 years of teaching at Sheffield. With a strong focus on design and civil engineering practice, she played a leading role in shaping how students learn through projects. From founding the Global Engineering Challenge to developing the Integrated Design Project, Rachel as helped embed real-world thinking across the curriculum. Her work continues to support students in "seeing the application of their technical knowledge" and understanding that engineers is, at it's core, "all about decision making."

The Case for Project Weeks

When Rachel first proposed a project week back in 2009–10, the idea came from a series of national workshops on sustainability and the engineer’s role in society. What began as a presentation to the Faculty of Engineering Teaching Committee quickly gained momentum. “There was obviously an appetite,” she recalls. “People thought it was a good idea.”

That idea grew into two large-scale project-based initiatives now woven into the fabric of the curriculum: the Global Engineering Challenge (GEC) and Engineering You’re Hired.

GEC, the week-long interdisciplinary project for first years, aims to introduce students to the complexity and responsibility of engineering in real-world contexts. Teams work across disciplines on infrastructure-based challenges, from housing to energy, in under-resourced or environmentally pressured settings. The goal: to get students thinking about design, sustainability, ethics, and social impact from day one.

Crucially, GEC is non-credit bearing by design. "We wanted to make it fun," Rachel explains. "Learn by doing...and it didn't matter as long as they participated." It's also compulsory, ensuring every student gains that early, low-stakes exposure to collaboration and decision making.

The second-year project, Engineering You’re Hired, raises the stakes with a shift to commercial, future-facing challenges. Think space debris collection or robotic firefighting. Here, the focus turns to entrepreneurial thinking, risk management, and defending ideas under pressure. Daily “boardroom” reviews and unusual presentation formats push teams to be agile and reflective, all in front of real industry guests. As Rachel puts it, “You’ve got to present your ideas and you’re going to get tough questioning.”

Crucially, GEC is non-credit bearing by design

The Value of the Integrated Design Project

While the project weeks offer early exposure to interdisciplinary teamwork, the Integrated Design Project (IDP) brings students deeper into the realities of professional engineering. Developed within Civil and Structural Engineering, the IDP challenges students to plan the regeneration of a real industrial site in Neepsend, Sheffield—a plot that remains undeveloped to this day.

Each year, the scenario shifts. Students may be tasked with incorporating a tram connection, designing a long-span structure, or remediating contaminated land. The emphasis is on applying knowledge, not just recalling it. Rather than learning concepts in isolation, students start to see how their technical understanding fits together when they have to use it in practice.

The IDP unfolds in two stages. All students begin with the conceptual phase, where they explore client briefs and generate initial ideas backed by sketches and hand calculations. Those progressing to MEng continue to a detailed design phase, working at greater depth while BEng students move on to their individual projects. The entire module is credit-bearing and includes a reflective portfolio to help students consolidate what they’ve learned.

For many, it’s the first time different areas of learning come together in one cohesive challenge. Rachel describes it as a shift in perspective: students begin to understand why they learned certain things early on, realising, “I kind of understood it there, but now I need to apply it.” It’s this tangible sense of purpose paired with realism, complexity, and teamwork, that’s made the IDP a cornerstone of the department’s final-year teaching.

Keeping Things Relevant and Why It’s Getting Harder

For Rachel, keeping project-based learning relevant means constant renewal. “[Each year] some are retired, some are retained, some new ones are brought in,” she explains. Space debris, once a novel challenge, is now a staple.

While the Global Engineering Challenge has drawn on Engineers Without Borders, the project base is shifting. The Integrated Design Project, though set in the same Sheffield site, changes annually through evolving briefs shaped by staff and industry input.

But adapting isn’t always straightforward, especially in the age of AI. “There’s a big question about what do people need to know?” Rachel reflects. With automation handling more calculations, fundamentals still matter. “The ability to ask questions is even more important now than it used to be.”

Relevance today isn’t just about updating content. It’s about helping students think critically, apply principles meaningfully, and stay curious in a fast-changing world.

Engineering with Purpose

Project-based learning, at its best, doesn’t just teach technical skills. It encourages students to think critically about the kind of engineers they want to be. Reflection plays a key role in that process, helping students make sense of their experiences and take responsibility for their learning. It’s also a habit that supports lifelong learning, something increasingly vital in a fast-changing profession.

That broader perspective drives Rachel’s current work co-leading The Engineer and Society, a faculty initiative focused on ethics and sustainability. As she explains, engineers must recognise that “decisions have consequences, and they’re influenced by things.” From embodied carbon to material sourcing, the impacts of design choices ripple outward and students need the tools to navigate that complexity.

Inclusion matters just as much. Whether designing for diverse users or working in teams, Rachel highlights the importance of “empowering everybody to have a voice”, ensuring everybody to be valued.

Rachel is an inspiration in engineering education with a track record of excellence. But how did her journey start?