- Conference
- 2026 National Higher Education Conference
- Date
- 6 October 2025
- Decision
- Carried as Amended
Conference notes:
1)In September, the universities of Kent and Greenwich announced plans to merge, to form “the first-of-its-kind multi university group”;
2)Until recently, assumptions have been that mergers between universities may well take place, given the starving of funds from central government, which is well documented elsewhere;
3)The assumption would be that two universities in close proximity would share resources, and potentially carve up subjects and courses with an unedified fight over which campus would deliver what. Obviously, the main driver would be the opportunity to reduce costs by sharing central services, making redundancies where “efficiencies” can be found, but also potentially using the change as an excuse to drive down the terms and conditions of our members, often by transferring staff to companies with inferior pension schemes, perhaps outside national pay bargaining;
4)What we arguably didn’t see coming, was the merger of institutions from different cities, perhaps hundreds of miles apart from each other;
5)The development at Kent and Greenwich signals a new type of university entity, with degrees still potentially awarded by the component bodies, but for university workers, it could mean the same type of issues faced by education unions when multi-academy trusts were introduced;
6)The fact that the merger has been welcomed by many sector bodies tells us a lot. They obviously regard it as a pragmatic approach to the challenge of real-terms funding shrinking.
Conference believes:
a)For trade union members and activists, this represents a significant development, because the proliferation of “multi-academy universities” across the UK could be the model for a major realignment of higher education if we can’t reverse the lack of funding;
b)University leaders could see economies of scale by merging with similar or different institutions with geography no real consideration. Vice-Chancellors and Principals could look to the model of academy school consortia with one eye on enriching themselves even further, through public money, and the other on building colossal entities with a loss of character, but more importantly for us, a smokescreen for a major attack on rights as work, including pension rights and the ability to negotiate on a UK-wide basis over pay.
Conference calls on the Higher Education Service Group Executive to:
i)Work with both affected branches, Greater London and the South East regions, to effectively respond to the specific announcement about Greenwich and Kent, making it clear that we don’t accept compulsory redundancies or any deterioration of terms and conditions of current or future workers at either institution;
ii)Further consider the implications of mergers for all members across the Service Group, bearing in mind that geography need not be a constraint as far as university leaders are concerned;
iii)Produce information for branches and regions giving practical advice on how to resist attacks on our members’ jobs and working conditions caused by future mergers.