The first multi-university group arrives

The University of Greenwich and the University of Kent have this morning announced the intention to form a multi-university group.

The aim is for the London and South East University Group – as it’s provisionally to be known, though this will be subject to consultation – to be established in time for the 2026–27 academic year.

The plan on the student-facing side is for each university’s identity to be preserved – with applications, and degree awards, kept separate – behind the scenes, the “super-university” (as the press release puts it) will have a unified governing body, academic board, and executive team, and a single vice chancellor: Greenwich’s Jane Harrington. Staff at both universities are expected to transfer across to the newly merged university – legally, there will be one entity, but the two “brands” will still exist as trading arms.

Merger by numbers

Going by 2023–24 student numbers, the new “super-university” would have 46,885 registered students (29,695 at Greenwich, 17,190 at Kent), around the same size as the University of Manchester. It would employ 2,550 academic staff (currently 1,245 at Greenwich, 1,305 at Kent), roughly equivalent in size to Manchester Metropolitan University.

It would offer, based on the current UCAS database, an astonishing 442 full time undergraduate courses (281 at Greenwich, 171 at Kent) – 70  more than the University of Manchester. A glance across portfolios sees some interesting congruences. Kent has a medical school, Greenwich has a nursing school and a teacher training offer. Both are strong in law, computer science, business, engineering, and psychology. Greenwich has more of an offer in the arts and tourism, Kent in the hard sciences.

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The University of Kent has an established reputation for research in social policy and social work, and in law – although the largest single concentration of research active staff is in business and management studies. Greenwich also has a research concentration in business, but overall it has a less strong research portfolio.

Financially speaking, we’re talking about a “super-university” with nearly £598m of income (Greenwich £329m, Kent £268m): that’s a little less than Newcastle University. Expenditure of £569m (Greenwich £302m, Kent £266m) is in the University of Warwick ballpark.

While there have been a number of recent higher education mergers – ARU with Writtle, and City St George’s, in particular – the size and scale, along with the much-anticipated deployment of a multi-university model for the first time, mark this news as something of a watershed moment for the English sector.

Universities UK’s efficiency and transformation taskforce has been for some time highlighting the sector’s interest in something comparable to multi-academy trust structures in schools – while also noting the “relatively limited experience” that the sector possesses in navigating such arrangements. This is about to change – the two universities’ description of the intended union as “a blueprint for other institutions to follow” is likely prescient.

Two become one

We might also note here that such a model is by no means limited to only two universities operating under one umbrella. The conversations behind the scenes over the last couple of years have been for groups spanning multiple universities and it’s not hard to see how others in the region might want to – or somehow be compelled to – join this group once it’s up and running. Starting with two, however, is a logical choice given the scale and complexity of that exercise alone. The government will be watching closely and hoping it works, so that they can propose the model elsewhere, particularly if it staves off the risk of institutional failure. Local politicians will also be watching closely as a potentially massive new institution emerges, which could have far-reaching local consequences for better and worse.

One of the eye-catching aspects of today’s announcement is that of leadership – it has already been settled that there is to be one vice chancellor, one board and one senior team. Most mergers and collaborations in HE in recent times have failed before they have even started because of disagreement about which person should sit in the big chair. Being able to embrace this merger process free of that thorny question gives the exercise a much greater chance of success from the outset.

Of course, collaboration between the University of Greenwich and the University of Kent is not new. Since 2004 the two universities have jointly run the Medway School of Pharmacy in Chatham Dockyard, a joint endeavour that has grown into a multi-disciplinary campus shared between the Greenwich, Kent, and Canterbury Christ Church University. These two decades of practical experience will be an invaluable resource to draw on as these plans move closer to implementation.

Just the beginning?

Aside from the potential for other institutions to join the group, the announcement is clearly the start of a long-term process. Despite staff and students coming together into the newly merged university, student pathways and decision-making processes will inevitably be tied to the old institutions and subject areas – and this is difficult to change midstream. If the merger is successful, then these identities could eventually end up disappearing or at least moving to the background, as natural opportunities for integration and efficiencies are sought to be realised by the board and leadership team.

Such talk will no doubt be unsettling for staff at both Kent and Greenwich, who will wonder for how long their jobs will be needed, particularly where they have a like-for-like counterpart on the other side. The consultations about their futures will need to be thorough and sensitive.

And enormous questions of REF submissions, TEF awards, data, DAPs and more will now also need to be worked through.

For now we watch as a new institution takes shape.