The South Australian government is pursuing a possible university merger between two of the state’s three best institutions as it aims to re-enter the Top 100 rankings.
Premier Peter Malinauskas is pushing ahead his election commitment for a University Merger Commission to “determine the path toward a successful merger” between two of the state’s top three universities – Adelaide and UniSA. Mr Malinauskas told Sky News Australia a lot of analysis and discussion over the last 25 years has gone into whether having three universities has left each one too undercapitalised to make it into the list of top international institutions.
“Does South Australia really need three universities and if there was an amalgamation of two of them, would that provide economies of scale that would attract more research investment … and more money coming in,” he said. “This is again, to be frank, a risky policy … but our assessment is and a lot of academia’s assessment is this is a necessary reform, focused on the long term of our state and that’s why we’re pursuing it.”