In the context of the ever growing use of technology through e-learning and open-courseware, our paper describes a project that is being carried out by a consortium of twelve university partners and is coordinated by the University of Maastricht and RAND Europe (Cambridge). This project sets out to examine the evolution and sustainability of the innovative modes of higher education provision in teaching and learning across Europe, the motivations for their emergence as well as the ways in which higher education management and governance have responded and adapted to such new modes of provision. In the highly competitive sector of higher education (HE), while attempting to enhance the quality of teaching and learning, the increasing range of teaching and learning providers (encouraging both new delivery models and the ‘unbundling of delivery’ through partnerships, spin-out organisations, franchising, etc.), has challenged the ‘traditional’ model of university and stimulated changes in the provision and management of higher education. Our paper describes the general framework of the project, foregrounding the first preliminary results of the first European-wide analysis of such innovative modes of provision in teaching and learning in Europe.