plate-glass university noun1 •(UK) Any of several universities founded in the United Kingdom in the 1960s in the era of the Robbins Report on higher education.The new “red-bricks” of Hull, Exeter and Leicester were followed in the 60s by mass expansion as the “plate-glass universities”, such as Warwick, York and Sussex, came into being. — 2014 formsplate glass universities · plate-glass universities