London

Two of Britain's major research universities are planning to merge in a bid to create an institution that is better able to compete for funds and staff on the international stage.

The University of Manchester and its neighbour, the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), announced the proposal on 4 March.

The move would create a university with 28,000 full-time students and a research income of £130 million (US$185 million) this year — the fifth largest in the United Kingdom behind University College London (UCL), Imperial College in London, and the universities of Oxford and Cambridge (see figure).

UMIST was once formally part of the University of Manchester, but has always had independent governance and financial systems, and the merger plan came as a surprise to researchers at both universities. The plan emerged from a six-month review by a committee of academics at the two institutions into how they could collaborate more closely.

In a joint statement, the respective vice-chancellors of UMIST and the University of Manchester, John Garside and Martin Harris, said: “The proposal to create a new university is a bold and imaginative step. There will now be a full consultation process to discuss the proposal in detail.”

Neighbours make nice: Manchester campuses may join to form one of the UK's top research universities. Credit: AEROFILMS

The plan could presage more consolidation in UK universities, observers say, although few prospective partners will fit as well as the two Manchester institutions. Their city-centre campuses are barely a mile apart, they share student sports and careers facilities and already have two combined departments, in materials science and civil engineering. If the merger is agreed, it could be implemented by September 2004, university officials say.

A decade of expansion in student numbers — without a matching growth in funding — has left Britain with 114 universities, most of them relatively small. Several universities have recently swallowed up neighbouring colleges, and some — such as Birmingham and Aston — have discussed merging. “I would be surprised if there were not mergers in the next five to ten years,” says Andrew Miller, former vice-chancellor of the University of Stirling. But he predicts that most universities will seek to strengthen their positions through alliances, rather than full mergers.

The universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde, for example, formed a 'strategic alliance' in 1998, through which researchers share equipment, lab space and teaching resources. Looking abroad, Cambridge set up a joint institute with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2000, and Oxford and Princeton announced an alliance last year.

Some university heads, such as Richard Sykes of Imperial College, argue that efforts to compete internationally should be focused on just a handful of UK research universities.

The two Manchester universities stress that their aim is to claim a place at this international high table. But some observers point to devolution in UK domestic politics as a factor. ”It could be that Manchester and UMIST are launching a pre-emptive strike in order to be the dominant partner in a future northwest regional grouping,” says John Ashworth, a former director of the London School of Economics.