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The article analyzes the merging of three Strasbourg universities, focusing in particular on the actors who promoted it and the arguments used to justify it. The merger and the larger movement it generated in the French higher education system amount to an institutional change aimed at making French universities conform to what are presented as international organizational standards. The point is to understand the concrete processes that gave rise to this change and the role played by the institutional entrepreneurs who wanted it to happen and made it happen. The article therefore contributes to institutional change studies and works to renew neo-institutional analysis of organizations, namely by reintroducing the notions of agency, interest and power relationships.