This chapter delineates the conceptual and pedagogical scope of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) in higher education, situating its emergence in response to discipline-specific academic and professional communication needs. It traces how ESP has drawn on major methodological traditions within English Language Teaching, including Communicative Language Teaching and Task-Based Language Teaching, and situates these alongside content and language integrated approaches such as Content-Based Instruction and Content and Language Integrated Learning. The chapter further positions English as a Medium of Instruction within this pedagogical continuum, clarifying its scope and instructional orientation in relation to ESP. An analysis of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) is used to map the contemporary higher-education ecology in which ESP operates, identifying enduring strengths, emerging opportunities, and structural conditions that shape its institutional positioning. This mapping provides the conceptual groundwork for the pedagogical pathways developed in later chapters.