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

318 Pages·2015·4.58 MB·English

by  Adrian Curaj

Adrian Curaj
Luke Georghiou
Jennifer Cassingena Harper
Eva Egron-Polak Editors
Mergers
and Alliances
in Higher
Education
International Practice
and Emerging Opportunities
Mergers and Alliances in Higher Education

Adrian Curaj (cid:129) Luke Georghiou
Jennifer Cassingena Harper (cid:129) Eva Egron-Polak
Editors
Mergers and Alliances
in Higher Education
International Practice and Emerging
Opportunities
Editors
AdrianCuraj LukeGeorghiou
UNESCOChaironScience ManchesterBusinessSchool
andInnovationPolicies MBSHaroldHankinsBldg.
NationalUniversityofPoliticalStudies TheUniversityofManchester
andPublicAdministration(SNSPA) Manchester,UK
Bucharest,Romania
EvaEgron-Polak
JenniferCassingenaHarper IntAssociationofUniversities(IAU)
MaltaCouncilforScience Paris,France
andTechnology
Kalkara,Malta
ISBN978-3-319-13134-4 ISBN978-3-319-13135-1 (eBook)
DOI10.1007/978-3-319-13135-1
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2015936449
SpringerChamHeidelbergNewYorkDordrechtLondon
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Preface
For more than two decades, Romania’s higher education system has been under-
goingreforms,experiencingfar-reachingchangesandstrivingforacademicexcel-
lence. The rate of change has been accelerated by a multitude of factors. Among
them,thegrowingdemandofadiversifiedpublicforhighereducationqualification
and the ever-increasing societal expectations with regard to higher education’s
contributions to the country’s prosperity and to job creation played an important
role. In addition, globalization and internationalization raised dramatically the
impact of rankings and transparency tools, bringing forth the growing role of
private higher education and generating the massification of higher education,
while also changing student needs and expectations. The two key developments
at the European level, the Bologna Process and the Lisbon Strategy, have intro-
ducedanunprecedenteddynamictosuchtransformations.
Institutional differentiation and inter-university cooperation have recently
become strategically important for each university in Romania, particularly so
whenconsideringthedemographicdecline,whichhasledtoadiminishingdemand
for higher education and the shrinking of public resources during the period of
economiccrisis.Inordertomeettheemergingchallengesfacinghighereducation
institutions, the new Law on Education in Romania, adopted in 2011, explicitly
referstomergersinhighereducation,settingouta“softframework”foruniversity
concentrations.Soonafterthelawwasadopted,groupsofuniversitiesinRomania
engaged in merger negotiations. Some of these negotiations have already been
concluded, some have failed, while other institutions are simply and cautiously
exploring their options. What could and should be done in Romania to “walk the
talk”?Howwouldtheexistinginternationalexperienceshelpintakingadvantageof
the potential benefitsof merger oralliance processesorotherforms of concentra-
tion of resources, while avoiding the unintended consequences? Are there top-
down,bottom-uporawiderdiversityofstrategies,interventionsandoptions?Are
therelessonstobelearnedandexperiencestobesharedinEuropeandaroundthe
globe? How do we measure their impact? How much prospective thinking would
helpandwhen?
v
vi Preface
The subject of higher education collaborations, be they alliances or mergers,
concentrations or amalgamations, is of interest not just nationally but also at the
internationallevel.Ithasgeneratedarecentspateofnewprocesses,manyofwhich
areyettoberesearchedindepth,torespondtoquestionssuchasthefollowing:are
these developments afashion, are they about the efficiency-effectiveness ofusing
resourcesorjustaboutbuildingofcriticalmassinareaswhereexistingexperiences
andcompetencesarefarfromreachingtheir potential,are theydriven byexisting
fragmentationandduplications,etc.?Therearetop-downinterventionsandbottom-
up initiatives, all of them aiming to strengthen institutions and improve their
performance.However,thequestionthatconstantlyloomslargeconcernsprimarily
theoptimalstrategyatworkandtheintendedorunintendedconsequencesofsuch
endeavours.
Theideaofthisvolume,asacollectionofcasestudiesonalliancesandmergers
of higher education institutions, emerged during the discussions organized by the
Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation
Funding (UEFISCDI) within the framework of an international Mutual Learning
Workshop(MLW)aspartoftheBucharestDialogues–“aformofBohmDialogue
onthefundamentalsofforesight”.TheoverallscopeoftheMLWhasbeentogather
evidence and collective intelligence for informing decision-makers on policy
optionsinordertoensurethemosteffectiveoutcomes.The“BucharestDialogues”
platform was launched in 2009 to support the process of the “Higher Education
Vision 2025 – Seeds for the Future” and the development of the “White Paper –
HigherEducation2015”.Itwasalsotheplatformfortheorganizingofthe“Future
ofHigherEducation–BolognaProcessResearchers’Conference”in2011.“Going
beyond Bologna” suggests that the Bologna Process has always been a dynamic
one,endowedwiththecapacitytotranscenditsoriginalobjectives.The“Bucharest
Dialogues” has also been the platform supporting the External – “international
institutionalevaluation”processofuniversitydifferentiationinRomania.
Lastbutnotleast,concentrationsandamalgamationscouldandshouldbehigh
onthedevelopmentagendaofaprojectsuchasthe“LaserValley”,currentlybeing
implemented in Romania. This concept was generated by the construction of the
Extreme Lights Infrastructure and Nuclear Physics, ELI-NP, in the southwest of
Bucharest,closetotheDanubeRiver.Thescientificandtechnologicaluniqueness
of the ELI-NP, a pan-European research infrastructure, will be a catalyst for
different forms of public–public and public–private partnerships. It may help the
concentration of scientific and technological facilities, create incentives for
interdisciplinaryworkandcriticalmassfortakingfulladvantageoftheinnovation
ecosystem, and generate incentives for universities to explore different ways of
collaboration,includingalliancesandmergers.
Itislikelythatrespondingtoexternalpressureswillincreasinglycometoimply
changing the boundaries of an institution. New frontiers may mean that such
mergers and alliances will take place with entities from outside the academic
world altogether, in the name of private provision. These are areas to be studied
further, while looking forward to the emerging challenges of the upcoming
10–15years.
Preface vii
Theauthorsofthecasestudiesandtheirpersonalandcollectiveeffortmadethis
volume possible. They produced well-researched case studies that substantially
extend our knowledge on academic mergers and alliances, while graciously and
informatively developing the existing topics further. We are grateful for their
contributions.
Wewouldalsoliketoacknowledgethefinancialsupportoftheproject“Ready
for innovating, ready for better serving the local needs – Quality and Diversityof
the Romanian Universities”, funded by the Structural Funds – Operational
ProgrammeforHumanResourceDevelopment2007–2013.
May this research volume represent food for thought and inspire future
strategicactions.
Bucharest,Romania AdrianCuraj

Contents
1 MergersandAlliancesinContext. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
LukeGeorghiouandJenniferCassingenaHarper
PartI MergersandAlliancesfromthePerspective
ofNationalHigherEducationSystems
2 MergersandAlliancesinFrance:Incentives,
SuccessFactorsandObstacles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Andre´eSursock
3 MergersandClassificationsinRomania:
OpportunitiesandObstacles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
LiviuAndreescu,RaduGheorghiu,AlinaIrimia,andAdrianCuraj
4 CollaborationBetweenUniversitiesinSweden. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
DanielLjungbergandMaureenMcKelvey
5 ReorganisingtheWelshUniversitySystem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
PhilipGummett
6 InstitutionalMergersinIreland. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
SiobhanHarkinandEllenHazelkorn
7 InstitutionalMergersinChineseHigherEducation. . . . . . . . . . . . 123
RuiYang
8 InstitutionalCultureofMergers
andAlliancesinSouthAfrica. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
MartinHall
ix