• This is an electronic version of an article published in Students' lack of preparedness for the mathematical demands of higher education is affecting a wide range of programmes in universities worldwide. In the UK this has been recognised at the highest levels and provoked several inquiries.The ability to use mathematics in courses as varied as nursing, biosciences, and business is an essential skill for success. Any factors that diminish students' ability to perform competently will impact upon large groups. Consequences include failure, loss of self-esteem and financial losses. Conversely, strategies that improve performance lead to improvements in retention, progression and cost-effectiveness.This paper details the way a research-led university has faced the challenges and brought mathematics support high up its strategic agenda, leading to a university-wide support strategy. It describes the implementation of this strategy and shares experiences gained for the benefit of policymakers and practitioners who are interested in enhancing their own institution-wide support provision.

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The challenges facing those charged with teaching mathematics to engineers are enormous. Faced with large groups of students possessing a considerable range of abilities, prior experiences, and motivations, it is incumbent upon the developers and deliverers of mathematics programmes to engineers to ensure that such programmes are as inclusive as possible and take into account the particular and often individual needs of the student. Often a mathematics lecturer is caught between the demands of an engineering department expecting students to know and apply advanced techniques, and the needs of groups of students who lack confidence, have serious gaps in their knowledge and sometimes lack ability in mathematics. This paper describes an innovative approach to these challenges which involves a mix of traditional and modern technologies and which has been used with some effect at Loughborough University, for the teaching of mathematics to first year undergraduate engineering students. The mathematical education of engineers-the challengesThe importance of mathematics as a tool for the description and analysis of engineering systems and processes has long been acknowledged. That mathematics is a prime constituent of the education of an engineer is substantiated by the facts that it is often the only subject specified as a pre-requisite, and it is a common feature underpinning all engineering courses. As a consequence the design and delivery of an appropriate mathematical curriculum for engineering undergraduate students should be of central importance to educators.In recent years the mathematical preparedness of students embarking upon engineering degree programmes has been the subject of numerous research reports (for example IMA,1999;Sutherland and Pozzi, 1995; Institution of Chemical Engineers et al., 1995;LMS, 1995), and the topic has been debated at many conferences (for example, Hibberd and Mustoe, 1997;Demlova, 1998). A common theme running through much of this

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