 These colleges historically focused on vocational education, such as teacher and nursing education, but from the mid 1990s the newly formed Oslo University College and Akershus University College had gradually become more similar to universities through of a process of "academization", similar to the development of British polytechnics into new universities.This involved broadening their scope to include more traditionally academic disciplines and placing increased emphasis on research and education at master's and PhD levels, as well as increasingly favouring recruitment at the associate professor level or higher.From 1995, the colleges were also governed by the same law and regulatory framework as the universities.