Mergers and Alliances in Higher Education : International Practice and Emerging Opportunities

This volume casts light on mergers and alliances in higher education by examining developments of this type in different countries. It combines the direct experiences of those at the heart of such transformations, university leaders and senior officials responsible for higher education policy, with expert analysts of the systems concerned.

Higher education in Europe faces a series of major challenges. The economic crisis has accelerated expectations of an increased role in addressing economic and societal challenges while at the same time putting pressure on available finances. Broader trends such as shifting student demographics and expectations, globalisation and mobility and new ways of working with business have contributed to these increased pressures. In the light of these trends there have been moves, both from national or regional agencies and from individual institutions to respond by combining resources, either through collaborative arrangements or more fundamentallythrough mergers between two or more universities.

After an introductory chapter by the editors which establishes the context for mergers and alliances, the book falls into two main parts. Part 1 takes a national or regional perspective to give some sense of the historical context, the wider drivers and the importance of these developments in these cases. Included are both systemic accounts (for countries as France, Sweden, Romania, Russia, Wales and England), and specific cross-cutting in

itiatives including a major facility at Magurele in Romania and a Spanish programme for promoting international campuses of excellence. Part 2 is built from specific cases of universities, either in mergers or alliances, with examples from different countries (such as France, UK, Romania, Spain, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Switzerland). A concluding chapter by the editors assesses these experiences and indicates the implications and future needs for understanding in this domain.

Higher education in Europe and beyond faces a series of major challenges. The economic crisis has accelerated expectations of an increased role in addressing economic and societal challenges while, at the same time, putting pressure on available finances. Broader trends such as shifting student demographics and expectations, globalisation and mobility and new ways of working with business have contributed to these increased pressures. In the light of these trends there have been moves, both from national or regional agencies and from individual institutions to respond by combining resources, either through collaborative arrangements or more fundamentally through mergers between two or more universities.

This volume seeks to draw upon recent and past experiences of mergers and associations short of a merger and to approach the subject both from a systemic level and from the perspective of individual institutions. Inevitably the two levels are interlinked but broadly speakingthis distinction is used to separate Part 1, dealing with perspectives at the level of a nation and national system, although often illustrated by examples which extend the range of cases (for countries such as France, Sweden, Romania, Wales, China, South Africa), and Part 2, which takes us down to individual case-studies analysed in depth (in countries such as France, UK, Romania, Spain, Australia). These experiences of course also show responses to wider forces and initiatives but allow a more

detailed insight into the specific rationales and the implementation issues involved in effecting a university merger. Within the sections the general flow is from large to medium to small European countries and then to non-European.

The chapters of this volume tell stories and make contributions in their own right. An introductory chapter seeks to guide the reader by pointing out from the start some recurrent themes and tensions. In seeking to identify the phenomenon of universitymergers, their causes and their consequences, a series of dichotomies are discussed: alliance vs merger; external vs internal motivation; education vs research; short-term vs long-term outcomes and assessment; and motivation and implementation.