Post-1992 university

The term new universities, synonymous with post-1992 universities or modern universities, refers to former polytechnics and central institutions that were given university status through the Further and Higher Education Act 1992, as well as institutions that have been granted university status since 1992 without receiving royal charter. Institutions included may be established, or renamed as such, within the United Kingdom.

Prior to its use in this sense, the term had been used historically to refer to various groups of universities that were, at the time, newly established or newly raised to university status. From the mid-19th century the term "new universities" was used in England to distinguish the recently-established universities of Durham and London from the "old universities" of Oxford and Cambridge. In the early 20th century, the term was used to describe the civic universities that had recently gained university status, such as Bristol University and others, afterwards known as the red brick universities. The term was later used to refer to universities that gained their status in the 1960s, such as the former Colleges of Advanced Technology, which were converted to universities following the 1963 Robbins Report on higher education, and the plate glass universities, which were in the process of being established prior to that Report.

Following the 1992 Act, 33 polytechnics in England, the Derbyshire College of Higher Education, the Polytechnic of Wales and three Scottish central institutions were granted university status, alongside another trio of central institutions in the years following.

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