Leadership Foundation

News Articles

• Merging institutions involves much more than simply doing the maths
• Turnaround head warns mergers can cause decline

Merging institutions involves much more than simply doing the maths

THE 21 January 2010

If the Government wants to encourage mergers to ameliorate the university funding crisis, it must address a number of issues … All other things being equal, no governing body is going to vote to merge with an institution that will drag down its RAE or league table score….So often in life, that which it is intellectually self-evident we should do may, when cross-multiplied with human considerations, turn out not to be an attractive option. Why else do we have more than one high-street supermarket, high-street bank or high-street clothing retailer?

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Turnaround head warns mergers can cause decline

TES March 2010

The principal of a college credited with the fastest turnaround from failure to success has warned that mergers could send further education institutions into decline.

“My experience is, in the process of merger, people sometimes underestimate how difficult it can be to manage the impact it can have,” he said. “People take their eye off the ball on things like success rates. It becomes all about who gets the new job and all the focus is internal.”

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