With the expansion of student demand, more and more different types of students of all ages attend universities and colleges to be educated in a growing array of subjects. Knowledge-based enterprises in the economy and society create an expanding and rapidly changing professional labour market for which universities are expected to provide competent graduates. Governments expect universities to do much more for society in solving economic and social problems. The research base of the university world rapidly creates new knowledge and techniques, steadily increasing specialities and stretching the range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary fields. Pushed and pulled by enlarging, interacting streams of demand, universities are pressured to change their curricula, alter their faculties, and modernize their increasingly expensive physical plant and equipment. Some traditional fields of study are bypassed, others fall into disarray. If universities are not to lose their bearings while exploring new possibilities and adding new activities, they will need not only to maintain but also to reconstitute many of their traditional offerings. This text reports on research carried out over a two year period on five universities in Europe that have transformed themselves throughout this period, exercising more initiative and becoming more independent. It offers and in-depth, cross-national analysis of university development and analyzes specific steps taken during a 15-year period at these universities to transform themselves. The results are organized in two ways: in integrated institutional stories; and in generalized concepts highlighted in introductory and concluding chapters and used to frame each institutional account.