In the United Kingdom, a post-1992 university, synonymous with new university or modern university, is a former polytechnic or central institution that was given university status through the Further and Higher Education Act 1992, or an institution that has been granted university status since 1992 without receiving a royal charter. This is used in contrast to "pre-1992" universities.
The term "new universities" was historically used to refer to universities that were at the time new. In the mid-19th century, it 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 applied to the civic universities that had recently gained university status, such as Bristol and others (now known as red brick universities). The term was later used to refer to universities gaining 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 already in the process of being established at the time of the report.
