Internationalisation has become the dominant trend in many areas of life, not least in higher education, where there is much talk of ‘internationalising the curriculum', ‘internationalisation at home', and the like. Universities have had little to say, by contrast, about the de facto lingua franca of internationalisation, English, and instead, continue to project their internationalness through a national version of English, usually British or American. In this lecture I will discuss the phenomenon of English language change and the tendency among English language experts and non-experts alike to regard it as error. I will go on to consider how the massive increase in the number of non-native English speakers around the world has become the main driver of change in English, and the implications for the international university in the UK. To find out more about Professor Jennifer Jenkins work at the University of Southampton please visit http://www.southampton.ac.uk/cge/