It is a turboprop (ish) - the 'groundbreaking innovation' they're testing is the hybrid electric/heat recovery architecture, which if it pans out could indeed be a huge advancement.

The novel engine design, which is known as SWITCH (Sustainable Water Injecting Turbofan Comprising Hybrid-Electrics), will look to demonstrate the hybrid-electric and heat-recovery turbofan technologies, with a bid to lower fuel consumption by 25%.

Right?

It's all a variation on the theme of propellers: a high-bypass engine is basically a ducted fan, which is nothing more than a propeller encased in a shroud at the end of the day.

It is, all engines have them (well most, there is experimental propless one), just that in most modern combustion engines they are encased. The revolution comes from the blade design, the counter rotating fans design which needs such precise calculations to work efficiently, that supercomputers are required and then there are new composite materials among other more incremental advancements. All of that will allow them to design blade-out modern engine which will have radical improvement to efficiency.

I would have to do the math, but I would be shocked if a cowling actually caught a blade failure. There is a lot of energy involved and the cowlings are thin to keep them light.