Newcastle University will not renew its contract with Turnitin beyond the end of the 2026/27 academic year and has begun a phased withdrawal of the plagiarism-detection service, it told students on 1 October 2026. In the days that followed, statements from Aberystwyth University and the University of Manchester confirmed that Turnitin has postponed a planned change to its End-User Licence Agreement (EULA) until September 2027, after UK institutions objected to how student work might be used for AI.

Newcastle’s decision

The university’s statement, signed by Professor Ruth Valentine, Pro-Vice-Chancellor Education, says its University Education Committee reached the decision in September 2026. It gives three factors: other plagiarism-detection tools already available at the university, the student experience, and concerns arising from the EULA changes, particularly the potential use of staff and student data for AI purposes from next year. Newcastle says it will keep evaluating alternatives to maintain academic integrity standards through the transition. It has not named a replacement or disclosed what it pays Turnitin.

Newcastle University has decided not to renew its contract with Turnitin beyond the end of the 2026/27 academic year and will begin a phased withdrawal of the service.

Professor Ruth Valentine, Pro-Vice-Chancellor Education, Newcastle University

Newcastle is one of several UK universities stepping back. Times Higher Education reported on 9 October that the University of Westminster will retire Turnitin when its contract ends in July 2027, and that the University of Southampton said earlier this year it would end its association when its current deal lapses. Westminster’s own guidance gives the end date as 31 July 2027 and says no new Turnitin submissions will be accepted after the end of Semester 1 of 2026/27. It is moving to Blackboard Assignment with SafeAssign, which it says already handles about a third of its submissions, and describes AI detection as “probabilistic rather than conclusive”. Westminster did not cite data concerns.

Times Higher Education also reported that the University of Aberdeen is reviewing its use of the product and that the University of Cambridge has said it will not accept EULA changes that affect data privacy or intellectual property.

Turnitin’s postponement

Aberystwyth University’s Digital Education Team published a Turnitin statement on 5 October. It says that, in response to concerns from UK universities and colleges channelled through UCISA, the body that represents institutions on IT systems, Turnitin postponed the issue of a new EULA until September 2027 and committed to redrafting it in partnership with UCISA. According to the statement, Turnitin has confirmed that no student or staff data has been used to develop generative AI models or large language models and that it has no plans to use student essays in that way.

A joint statement from the University of Manchester and its Students’ Union on 7 October said Turnitin had postponed the change until the 2027/28 academic year, and that the university would keep its relationship with the company under review ahead of the new date. According to Times Higher Education, the change had been due to take effect on 7 July, and a Turnitin spokesperson said the company trains a classifier model to identify likely AI-written text but does not train a generative model.

What it means

TED analysis:

  • For university leaders: the postponement buys time, not certainty. Several contracts run to mid-2027, close to when the redrafted licence is due, so procurement and data protection teams have less than a year to decide which terms they will accept.
  • For suppliers: Westminster’s case is commercial as much as ethical. It argues that similarity checking is largely ineffective against generative AI and that its virtual learning environment already handles submission and marking, which opens room for tools built into those platforms.
  • For the sector: collective pressure through UCISA moved a global supplier to delay a licence change. Universities can expect to use the same route when other vendors seek rights over student work for AI.