Intensified global competition, more insistent public demand for accountability, pressures to widen access, stagnating public funding and the global trend towards privatisation of higher education revenues: these are important drivers of change that have created new conditions for higher education. These changes are prompting institutional leaders and governments to examine closely their higher education systems and the institutions that make them up, and to propose reforms to help ensure that national needs are addressed and that the higher education sector contributes effectively to national development.