University mergers must be based on “trust” given the constraints that competition laws place on collaboration, a university leader involved in the fusing of two Australian universities has advised.

Jennie Shaw, former deputy vice-chancellor at the University of Adelaide, said the decision to merge the institution with the University of South Australia to form a brand new university – Adelaide University – “makes a lot of sense” because of the geographical proximities of the universities and the region’s declining birth rate.

However Shaw told ̽����Ƶ’s Student Success UK&IE 2025 event in Edinburgh that because it was a merger of two institutions in “financially good shape” – as opposed to an acquisition or takeover – the universities had to “do everything again from the ground up”.

“Every single thing has to be a discussion,” continued Shaw, who is now vice-provost for education and student experience at University College London. “And I’d say that the areas where we kind of came apart a bit are where we tried to make choices and did not have that discussion, and those discussions are hard.”

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She said the Australian universities had paid a group of students, which included mature, indigenous and international students, to be involved throughout the merger process.

“It’s taken a long time to get to the point where we’ve got something ready to go,” she said, with the new institution set to open at the start of 2026, offering an “entirely new” curriculum.

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“That meant not only creating a new curriculum jointly across those two universities, but with all the partners that we’re involved with [and] also with all the accrediting bodies and the regulator.”

In the UK, the universities of Kent and Greenwich have recently announced a merger that will see them form a multi-university group.

Shaw said that even for universities considering collaboration on a smaller scale, such as sharing backroom services, “that’s still the same world of pain”, with competition laws making the process harder in both Australia and the UK.

“The reality is we are also in competition and the reality is with those two universities in my country merging, neither of them has seen each other’s financial documents still, because we’re not allowed to share.

“So you have to do a lot of things on trust, because otherwise you’re in breach of anti-competition laws.”

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In the UK, universities have previously voiced concerns about how fears of breaching competition laws can prevent collaboration.

While some were hopeful the government would address this in the recently-published post-16 White Paper, policymakers stopped short of making any changes to the legal framework.

Instead, the government said it would “support providers to increase their local collaboration where this is beneficial for students and the economy”.

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The paper said the Competition and Markets Authority “supports this objective as part of its support for lawful collaborations”.

But Shaw said that while the White Paper emphasised collaboration, “the mechanisms to do it are not clear” and universities often don’t have the funds or “bandwidth” to focus on this. “I think there’s a reality piece that the government could help with.”

Speaking at the same event, Damien Page, vice-chancellor of Buckinghamshire New University, suggested the university regulator could act as a “convener” to aid greater collaboration.

“Even if universities want to collaborate on certain things…who do you collaborate with? There’s no kind of matching service.

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“Now given the depth of understanding that the [Office for Students] has of individual providers, there is a convening power there to bring together suitable partners around a specific purpose.”

helen.packer@timeshighereducation.com