Mergers are on the rise in the university sector. Close to 100 cases over the past 15 years have been listed by the European University Association (EUA). They now feature in EUA’s University Merger Tool, the first interactive online map of the institutions born out of these processes:www.university-mergers.eu.

Whether mergers are part of large-scale restructuring of the higher education and research landscape or a response to local challenges, public authorities, university leaders and managers need to overcome similar issues. The tool intends to support them by helping to identify previous merger cases of interest, and thus foster the exchange of experiences and good practice across borders. As a pilot, it also allows users to give feedback and contribute to the development of a unique database.

The University Merger Tool complements EUA’s analysis of the phenomenon, which is detailed in Designing Strategies for Efficient Funding of Universities in Europe, the final publication of the DEFINE project released at the end of September. This report addresses the latest issues and trends in funding and restructuring of the university sector with a view to provide practical recommendations to policy makers and university practitioners. It focuses on questions of increasing relevance:

• how performance-based funding influences the strategy and activities of universities;
• whether mergers can create efficiencies and cost savings;
• what concentration of funding via “excellence schemes” means for universities and for the overall system.

Both tool and publication are outcomes of the joint work of EUA and its project partners with the guidance of an expert steering committee. The Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies (CIPES, Portugal), carried out transversal research contributing to the overall analysis and feeding into the academic discourse. Aalto University (Finland), the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (Germany), and Copenhagen Business School (Denmark), shared their first-hand experience in the matter and helped to structure the analysis. Finally, the University of Oxford explored possible lessons from previous reforms in the healthcare sector.

Notes:

• EUA’s University Merger Tool is available here: www.university-mergers.eu
• The publication Designing Strategies for Efficient Funding of Universities in Europe is available here: http://www.eua.be/Libraries/publications-homepage-list/designing-strategies-for-efficient-funding-of-universities-in-europe.pdf?sfvrsn=4
• All material developed in the DEFINE project can be access here:http://www.eua.be/define

Contact:

Ulrike Reimann Tel: +32 2 743 11 58; mobile: +32 491 15 89 72; email: Ulrike.reimann@eua.be

The European University Association, as the representative organisation of both the European universities and the national rectors’ conferences, is the main voice of the higher education community in Europe. EUA’s mission is to promote the development of a coherent system of European higher education and research.