  We consider a model of self-propelled dynamics for athermal active particles,
where the non-equilibrium active forces are modelled by a Ornstein-Uhlenbeck
process. In the limit of no-driving force, the model reduces to the passive,
Brownian dynamics of an atomistic glass forming fluid, the Wahnstr\"om binary
mixture. The Wahnstr\"om mixture is known to show strong correlations between
the emergence of slow dynamics and the formation of locally favoured structures
based on icosahedra. Here, we study how the non-equilibrium forces affect the
local structure of the system, and find that these strongly promote icosahedral
order. The phases rich in local icosahedral order correspond to configurations
of very low potential energy, suggesting that the non-equilibrium dynamics in
the self propelled model can be effectively exploited to explore the potential
energy surface of the binary mixture and have access to states that are
difficult to attain using passive dynamics.
