High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The term plate glass university (or plateglass university or plate-glass university) has come into use by some to refer to one of the several universities founded in the United Kingdom in the 1960s in the era of the Robbins Report on higher education. In some cases these were older schools with new Royal Charters, now making them universities. Contrary to popular myth, Robbins was not responsible for their foundation, with most of the applications for reclassification already accepted by the University Grants Committee in the later 1950s/early 1960s. Sussex and UEA were already open by the time Robbins presented his report.