On 13 November 2026, Times Higher Education reported that Turnitin’s chief executive, Chris Caren, attributes part of the recent wave of UK universities leaving Turnitin to budget pressure rather than only to the company’s proposed data terms. Newcastle, Westminster and Southampton have each said they will end their contracts; Southampton says cost-cutting was not a factor in its decision.
What the chief executive said
In an interview reported by Times Higher Education, Caren said Turnitin “got it wrong” by moving too quickly on a proposed new end-user licence agreement (EULA), and that the company “didn’t give [customers] nearly enough time to actually review it.” He also argued that “very severe” budget strain in the sector is a factor in why institutions have walked away.
The budget claim rests on one conversation. Caren said an official at a university that let its contract expire described the situation as a budget crisis, with the administration deciding not to renew Turnitin to save money and then using the EULA dispute as an excuse. He told THE he believes this applies to all three universities, but he had not spoken at length with officials at the other two.
Which universities have left, and what they say
- Newcastle University: a spokesperson said, “We have decided not to renew the contract,” and that the university routinely reviews the market as part of procurement.
- University of Southampton: said cost-cutting was not a factor in its decision.
- University of Westminster: did not respond to THE’s request for comment.
THE’s earlier report of 9 October 2026 gives the timing: Newcastle will stop using Turnitin after the 2026-27 academic year, Westminster will retire it when its contract ends in July 2027, and Southampton announced earlier in 2026 that it will end its association when its current deal lapses. That report also quotes two academics on cost. Thomas Lancaster of Imperial College London said “the finances are just a deeper driver here,” and Phil Newton of Swansea University said “most UK universities are in a tough spot financially and so any savings are welcome.” The same report notes that Southampton paid £87,621 for Turnitin from 1 September 2024 to 30 September 2025.
The data-terms dispute behind the exits
The proposed EULA raised concerns about how student work could be used to train AI tools. The planned implementation date was 7 July 2026. Several institutions raised concerns with UCISA, the membership organisation that supports technology use in UK universities and colleges, and Turnitin has agreed to work with a UCISA representation group. THE reports that the updated EULA will not take effect for “at least a year.”
Turnitin has about 16,000 customers worldwide. According to THE, around 100 raised concerns, about 90 of them in the UK. Caren denied that student data would train large language models, saying Turnitin would use “a very small number of anonymised student papers” to build a classifier that sorts work as human, AI or uncertain.
What it means for academic-integrity offices
The two explanations point in different directions, and the sources do not settle which is stronger. If a non-renewal is a procurement decision, integrity offices should expect to justify the cost of any detection tool against other budget lines. If it is a data-governance decision, the question becomes what student submissions may be used for, who controls that, and how it is disclosed to students. Those are separate issues, and an office reviewing its own contract can examine both without assuming either explains another institution’s choice.
THE also notes that commentators link non-renewals to the declining usefulness of the product in the AI era: Turnitin’s plagiarism checker cannot detect chatbot-written work, and the accuracy of its AI detector has been questioned. Caren’s own response is a product called Clarity, in which students write in a Turnitin editor that records time on task and writing patterns; he said one customer reported 61 misconduct cases in Clarity, with 59 resulting in punishment. That figure is a customer’s report relayed by the company’s chief executive, not an independent evaluation.
Implications for the AI-writing-detection debate in research and theses
For research and thesis supervision, the practical point is that detection output is a flag, not a finding. CASRAI’s earlier coverage of AI-detector false-positive controversies sets out why offices should treat scores cautiously. Definitions matter too: see how the dictionary defines an AI-generated-text detection tool, AI-generated content and plagiarism, and note that a generative-AI disclosure statement records declared use rather than inferring it from a score. A process-based approach such as drafting records is one option the chief executive’s own product reflects, but none of the sources evaluates its accuracy or its privacy trade-offs.
What is not established
The reporting does not show that budget pressure caused any of the three decisions: the only support is a single anonymous university contact, relayed by Turnitin’s chief executive, who had not spoken at length with the other two institutions. Southampton has publicly said cost was not a factor. No source gives Newcastle’s or Westminster’s reasons beyond Newcastle’s statement that it decided not to renew.
Sources
- Times Higher Education, “Turnitin chief: universities walked away due to ‘budget crisis'”, Georgia Luckhurst, 13 November 2026 (checked 2026-11-14).
- Times Higher Education, “More universities end Turnitin contracts as concerns mount”, Georgia Luckhurst, 9 October 2026 (checked 2026-11-14).
