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Wales to lose nearly half its universities

The number of universities in Wales must be cut from 11 to at least 6 by 2013, the body that funds higher education in the principality said yesterday.

Since 2002 the Welsh government has encouraged universities to voluntarily collaborate and merge and has provided funding for them to do so. But in a statement sent to selected parties yesterday, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW) said, “progress has been too limited” and so it and the government have decided to set a compulsory target. “There are too many institutions to ensure sustainability,” it says.

The council wants institutions to collaborate regionally, so that there are no more than two universities in each region. A spokeswoman for HEFCW said it was not yet clear how the restructuring would be funded.


Philip Gummett, chief executive of HEFCW, said in a statement, “We have not until now been so explicit in our expectations for the structure of higher education in Wales, preferring the sector to come forward with proposals. But we have been asked to give a clearer lead.”

“We will be discussing the road to reconfiguration with vice-chancellors and governing bodies as a matter of urgency over the coming months,” he adds.

Chandra Wickramasinghe, an astrobiology at Cardiff University, and proponent of the controversial idea that life on Earth was seeded by bacteria from space, fears the cuts will be bad news for basic science.

He agrees that there are too many universities in Wales that are of a poor academic standard and says that the slimming down could be beneficial in the long-term by “filtering out the less productive areas of research”.

But “in the short term this could be devastating for blue skies research”, he adds. Research fields that do not have immediate financial impact, including his own area, are under threat. In August, Cardiff University informed Wickramasinghe that its centre for astrobiology, which he directs, would close on 1 September, he says. The centre remains in limbo while he fights the move.

Higher Education Wales, a body which represent Welsh universities, said in a statement, “The Welsh Assembly government’s policy on reconfiguration and collaboration is well understood by university leaders, and a number of institutions are implementing or discussing structural change.”

Comments

  1. Report this comment

    Ben D said:

    This is crazy, the problem is the university’s are being run too much like a business. Surely it can’t all be about the bottom line.

    Structure in higher education is critical yes but to say research isn’t a productive area doesn’t make sense. Maybe by productive its mean it doesn’t have an immediate financial impact on the bottom line.

    A lot of smoke and mirrors IMO

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    Shazib Shabir said:

    They shouldn’t reduce number of universities. universities are the key to development as huge number of students can take benefits from them.

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