Gemma Fraser: Time to learn together?

Just ask the staff at HBOS and Lloyds TSB who suffered at the hands of the Lloyds Banking Group merger, or the employees of Cadbury's who are waiting to discover their fate after the Kraft Foods takeover.

But as two of Scotland's oldest educational institutions – Edinburgh University and Edinburgh College of Art – admit to being in merger talks, the debate on whether such a move can actually have more positives than negatives gets underway.

Clearly, linking two well-established but vastly different institutions has its plus points, particularly with the prospect of long-term cuts for universities looming.

It is accepted that closer working relationships, including pooling staff, resources, research and expertise, improves chances for future survival and development of institutions.

But there are also fears that mergers such as this could be driven purely by financial considerations, and therefore are not in the best interests of the individual institutions or their students. So should Scottish institutions be looking to forge closer links with each other to get the most out of the ever-dwindling funding allocated to them?

The answer, broadly, is yes – but only if the academic benefits are the main driving force, and, most importantly, can be proved. Robin McAlpine, spokesman for Universities Scotland, believes that mergers are generally the result of years of collaboration between institutions and simply represent the next logical step in that partnership.

He says most people have no idea the amount of behind-the-scenes collaboration that goes on, with not only same-city institutions linking with one another, but also national link-ups.

Universities and colleges have been working together for years, with Queen Margaret University recently formalising its relationship with nearby Jewel and Esk College.

Furthermore, Mr McAlpine says, the belief that joining two institutions is going to save vast sums of money is a myth – and in some cases it actually costs more to do.

He said: "

Where it goes badly wrong," he said, "is if somebody wakes up one morning and says 'we should merge these two' because it's not an effective way to do it.

"Diversity and distinctiveness are important parts of the university sector in Scotland and saying if we had three institutions instead of 15, things would be five times better is lazy thinking and something we have to guard against."

Unions are also adamant that the motives behind any collaborations or possible mergers have to be purely based on academic reasons.

Dr Tony Axon, of the University and College Union, said: "

The grant for smaller institutions to be able to stay independent looks like it's going to be removed so there's a slight concern the College of Art is doing this for financial reasons.

"It's a bit early to say but I can see that there is a good fit between Edinburgh University and the College of Art."

The EIS teaching union also needs to be convinced of the educational benefits.

David Belsey, national officer for further and higher education at the EIS union, said: "Advantages include bringing together complementing areas of expertise and offering greater security for ECA staff in particular, since ECA is a smaller institution and may be more susceptible to any future cuts.

"A possible disadvantage of any merger is that provision would be consolidated and therefore cut, which could lead to job losses.

"The EIS would object to any merger if compulsory redundancies were a consequence of it."

It is clear that with decreasing funding, collaboration is vital however principals must not be swayed by financial pressures when it comes to taking that next step.