Institutional churn: institutional change in United Kingdom higher education

This article considers how higher education institutions change over time, using the United Kingdom system as an exemplar, and focusing on the 15-year period between 1994/95 and 2009/10. While there are many aspects of institutional change worthy of study, the focus here is on how institutions appear to others. Thus, the article examines the institutional mergers that took place, institutional name changes, changes in institutional size (as measured by student enrolment) and a range of other forms of institutional change (migration, change of sector, change in funding status, closure, establishment, de-federalisation). While, alongside widespread change, a degree of continuity, at least in some institutions, also needs to be recognised, the picture presented is one of a continual 'institutional churn', through which institutions regularly re-invent themselves in an attempt to better face their changing circumstances.