Dollars driving university mergers

Edith Cowan University vice-chancellor Professor Millicent Poole doesn’t mince her words when talking about the impact of “biting federal reforms” on the university sector.

“Canberra’s policies are throwing up challenges for all Australian public universities, but Western Australia’s four face the greatest,” she said.

Professor Poole is particularly concerned about proposed research funding arrangements, which she said would “slowly starve the smaller players” and would mean that “only the University of WA, with its sandstone profile, would emerge palatable”.

She has used these arguments to push for a three-way merger with Curtin and Murdoch universities, but so far she has been rebuffed by her proposed merger partners.

Curtin’s vice-chancellor, Professor Lance Twomey, has dismissed the idea of a three-way merger and instead won backing from Curtin’s council to enter into merger discussions with Murdoch.

“The merger makes sense in terms of research synergies, comparable student quality and geographic proximity,” Professor Twomey said last week.

“However a three-way merger with ECU would make the process far more complex without enhancing it greatly.”

Murdoch vice-chancellor John Yovich said a two-way merger “would produce a significant research university, which would attract greater funding opportunities”.

“The combined entity would achieve a more economical use of resources,” he said.

A merger of Curtin and Murdoch would entrench the combined institution as the largest university in WA, with about 50,000 students.

However, a more telling statistic is the ranking on research funding.

UWA is recognised internationally as a member of the prestigious ‘group of eight’ research-intensive universities in Australia.

It generated $89 million of research income in 2003, ranking it number seven out of Australia’s 38 universities.

Curtin and Murdoch currently rank 12th and 13th respectively for research income, while ECU ranks 32nd.

On this basis, UWA would be included in the tier one research-intensive universities that are expected to be the funding winners under planned federal reforms.

Education Minister Dr Brendan Nelson wants to reward research excellence, and the winners would be about 10 universities included in the tier one category.

The tier two universities would have a mix of teaching and research, while tier three universities, such as a stand-alone ECU, would become teaching-only institutions.

Universities that fall outside the tier one are concerned the loss of research funding would reduce their prestige and their ability to attract the best staff and students.

Curtin and Murdoch are hoping that a two-way merger will push them higher up the rankings, so they can compete more effectively with the likes of UWA.

Professor Poole argues that the research funding statistics are skewed in favour of universities that are strong in capital-intensive areas such as heavy engineering and veterinary studies.

She says ECU is a leader in areas including literacy and palliative care, which she calls high social impact research.

“In the disciplines in which we work, we are high impact.”

Professor Poole also says ECU outranks other universities on the qualifications of teaching staff and on the volume of research publications, and would bring a lot of pluses to a merger.

More generally, she said research funding was just one aspect of the merger debate, and that WA’s universities needed to focus on the potential in five to 10 years.

“The vision we have put forward is what we could do collectively,” Professor Poole said.

The merger discussions follow a decade of declining government funding for Australia’s universities.

One response has been an increased focus on chasing full-fee-paying foreign students, but the growth in that market has slowed from about 10 per cent per annum to about 2 to 3 per cent.

Also, WA’s share of that market has halved from about 20 per cent of the national total to about 10 per cent.

Curtin has acknowledged the financial pressure on the sector.

Explaining a planned 25 per cent increase in undergraduate fees in 2006, Professor Twomey said it reflected the drop in student applications in 2005 “and the ongoing budgetary pressures all universities are experiencing”.

Speaking earlier this month, Professor Twomey said some difficult decisions would need to be made, including the likely closure of some courses.