My own overall experience as a university professor in Canada and the UK and some of my research experience on issues of innovation and research in higher education undoubtedly inform how I interpret the literature itself and my overall view of the potential policy implications for Ontario (Doern and Stoney 2008; Doern and Kinder 2007; Doern and Levesque, 2002). [...] In later parts of the paper, aspects of the Teichler typology, of the dynamics of differentiation, and of the linked issue of polytechnics as institution versus polytechnics as education will necessarily re-enter the discussion. [...] The statutory objectives of these changes and experiments were: • to raise the standard of education; • to react to changing needs for expertise and skills; • to make vocational education more attractive; • to improve the international compatibility of vocational education; • to make vocational education more functional; • to decentralize the administration of vocational education; and • to reinfo [...] The US system is a dynamic and competitive system, not only because of the mixture of public and private institutions but also because of the nimbleness of individual institutions, particularly the community colleges. [...] Last but not least, performance issues ultimately confront the conceptual dilemmas inherent in our discussion in the first section of the paper regarding the Teichler typology and its discussion of differentiation and integration in higher education achieved through formal change and nomenclature on the one hand, and informal change on the other hand, via changes in degrees offered, accreditation