Possible merger of TCD and UCD

El Siglo

Peter Sutherland has suggested with the budget crisis of Irish universities etc... that some kind of super university should be created. Here's the article.

Peter Sutherland, the chairman of Goldman Sachs who was speaking in Dublin last Friday, said Ireland can't afford seven universities if it hopes to have any world-class institutions. He said: "Surely seven is too many if we're talking about comprehensive world-class research universities with undergraduate education, postgraduate training and research. Personally I can't see how Ireland can afford this." Mr Sutherland also said that Trinity and UCD should combine to create a world-class institution. He added: "We would have a top-20 or even a top-10 player to compete in the big leagues and, if so, wouldn't that be the best thing for Ireland?"

What do ye think? Will there be as much protest to it like there was the last time they tried this?

Boston

We're already a world class university. Sounds like a bean counting accounting talking nonsense with no eye on the logics involved. Galway, UCC and Maynooth and all the same university, but at soon to be split.

electrogrimey

I assume they'd mean having UCD as a college under Dublin University. Basically, all it would change is that UCD students could say they're in Dublin University, and they'd get a better degree. If it helps with finances, I'd be up for it. Trinity would still be a better college than UCD, even if they're both in the same university.

Doug Cartel

TCD is a big fish in a small pond - and even then, not that big - and I think it's easy to forget that. Since starting here I've found it amusing the way people say "We're the 43rd best in the world, isn't that really good?" when in the place I did my MSc it was "We're in the top twenty, how can we get into the top ten?"

EDIT: BTW, what would this mean for the NUI?

Doug Cartel

Doug Cartel wrote: »

the NUI?

Who?

Doug Cartel

Dammit, I was all set with a let me google that for you link, before I checked the NUI's website and saw it's being abolished, so I guess it doesn't matter who they are/were.

phlegms

I'm sure that would work wonderfully..

electrogrimey

Doug Cartel wrote: »

TCD is a big fish in a small pond - and even then, not that big - and I think it's easy to forget that. Since starting here I've found it amusing the way people say "We're the 43rd best in the world, isn't that really good?" when in the place I did my MSc it was "We're in the top twenty, how can we get into the top ten?"

EDIT: BTW, what would this mean for the NUI?

In fairness, having a college in the top 50 in a country as small and insignificant as Ireland is pretty good. Especially considering how useless our government is.

Doug Cartel

electrogrimey wrote: »

In fairness, having a college in the top 50 in a country as small and insignificant as Ireland is pretty good. Especially considering how useless our government is.

You know what you're right. Let's all sit on our arses and talk about how great we are.

El Siglo

You should never rest on your laurels, 43rd is still 43rd and can be better.:D All that would happen is a change in the degree parchment for the UCD heads and that's it. Nothing major apart from that. Colours matches and all that would as I assume still be the same, the usual mickey mouse rivalry that exists between colleges of a university (e.g. UCL and KCL) etc... but we'd be all under the same umbrella. Can't see any major obstacles to that.

electrogrimey

Doug Cartel wrote: »

You know what you're right. Let's all sit on our arses and talk about how great we are.

Great idea, and then we can hop over to the SU election thread and complain about how shit life is.

Doug Cartel

To a certain extent these things are done to simply game the scores in these kinds of league tables, so just by nominally merging the two universities you would probably jump up a places or two.

Having taken a quick look at the sizes of the two universities and the expertise they contain, it appears to me that a true merger could produce an actual world leading organisation. Maybe top twenty, with potential for growth.

I'm not that naive though, politics and bureaucracy would be too big an obstacle. Still though, a nominal merger combined with greater skills/expertise transfer and a serious gentleman's agreement not to step on each others toes academically could produce some great results.

electrogrimey

To be honest, if you wanted to make DU a great university, you'd be better off merging colleges that are completely different to Trinity under it. UCD is more or less the same as Trinity, with perhaps not the same level of quality. Whereas, you could merge the business parts of DCU which are well respected, as Trinity isn't known for business, or merge the RIAM under DU, seeing as Trinity doesn't have any performance music courses, or merge NCAD etc.

Doug Cartel

electrogrimey wrote: »

To be honest, if you wanted to make DU a great university, you'd be better off merging colleges that are completely different to Trinity under it. UCD is more or less the same as Trinity, with perhaps not the same level of quality. Whereas, you could merge the business parts of DCU which are well respected, as Trinity isn't known for business, or merge the RIAM under DU, seeing as Trinity doesn't have any performance music courses, or merge NCAD etc.

These are some good ideas. (Though I can't imagine DCU would be too thrilled if all their strongest departments were taken away from them and given to DU.)

The major thing that merging TCD and UCD would give is sheer numbers. I think one problem with a lot of things in Ireland is that they don't have critical mass. TCD + UCD would have over 30k students and the facilities and staff needed to teach them.

That's a pretty sweet size - it allows you to start throwing your weight around on an international scale, crowding out conferences, becoming major partners in big international projects, etc. It also gives you room to start really developing some of the "prestige" subjects (e.g. esoteric branches of physics that may change our understanding of the universe, but have no immediate value to the economy.)

Boston

Doug Cartel wrote: »

These are some good ideas. (Though I can't imagine DCU would be too thrilled if all their strongest departments were taken away from them and given to DU.)

The major thing that merging TCD and UCD would give is sheer numbers. I think one problem with a lot of things in Ireland is that they don't have critical mass. TCD + UCD would have over 30k students and the facilities and staff needed to teach them.

That's a pretty sweet size - it allows you to start throwing your weight around on an international scale, crowding out conferences, becoming major partners in big international projects, etc. It also gives you room to start really developing some of the "prestige" subjects (e.g. esoteric branches of physics that may change our understanding of the universe, but have no immediate value to the economy.)

The basic flaw in your premise is the assumption that the two universities don't already work extensively together in every area that matters to sell Ireland Inc. In areas where they don't work together, their isn't much overlap or two much politics to be resolved by mergers. League tables are great and all, but that's all this would be, an exercise in getting higher up the league tables. If size really meant better education and a better university, UCD would be kicking ass. The reality is physical separation of the two colleges will always be the limiting factor.

Doug Cartel

Boston wrote: »

The basic flaw in your premise is the assumption that the two universities don't already work extensively together in every area that matters to sell Ireland Inc.

I have the occasional project meeting in Belfield, so I am aware of the existing level of cooperation.

If size really meant better education and a better university, UCD would be kicking ass.

1. It's not just a matter of size, but of critical mass.
2. It's a necessary, though not sufficient condition.

The reality is physical separation of the two colleges will always be the limiting factor.

I don't understand this statement. Are you saying that they will always be separate, and that's how it is, or are you saying that because the two campuses are separate, the colleges will remain separate?

RexMundi

Doug Cartel wrote: »

1. It's not just a matter of size, but of critical mass.
2. It's a necessary, though not sufficient condition.

!?!?!?!

Especially point one...

Alex_Jones

Great. Dilute the name of the University of Dublin to satisfy the needs of a bunch of bean counters who have no appreciation as to how universities work and have never submitted a journal article in their lives.

This is the problem with a reliance on state funding. But this war will be lost - those Fellows who put their name to the Universities Act 2000 are to blame for this mess.

Boston

Doug Cartel wrote: »

I have the occasional project meeting in Belfield, so I am aware of the existing level of cooperation.

Doubtful. I'd imagine few people have a full grapes of it. Point is, they work together where possible. This wouldn't be improved by bringing both colleges into the one organisation. I'm sure some departments work more closely with other unversities then they do other trinity departments.

Doug Cartel wrote: »

]
1. It's not just a matter of size, but of critical mass.
2. It's a necessary, though not sufficient condition.

Sorry, talking in terms of logical predicates in order to demonstrate how smart you are fails to impress me. I know the distinction between size and critical mass. You assumption is that neither university has the critical mass needed, my hypothesis is that both universities have the necessary critical mass and any enlargement would provide only minimal benefits of scale while directly increasing the levels of bureaucracy. Big isn't always beautiful. A big slow lumbering monolithic monster would be bad. Mkay.

Doug Cartel wrote: »

]
I don't understand this statement. Are you saying that they will always be separate, and that's how it is, or are you saying that because the two campuses are separate, the colleges will remain separate?

The inclusion of the word physical should have been a clue to the context in which I speak. Proximity is an important factor in facilitating collaboration. Look at NUI as an example.

Alex_Jones

So how many half-time administrators and dead-wood academics (some of whom haven't published in 5+ years) will lose their jobs in this "merger"? None: because you can't fire people with tenureship no matter how fat and parasitical they have become.

Nowadays, the College would sooner let a post-doc who has published 30 papers in 3 years go than have him stay on and therefore have to give him a permanent position (by virtue of the 3 year rule).

Doug Cartel

RexMundi wrote: »

!?!?!?!

Especially point one...

Most of the Universities in the top 20 either have 25k+ students or are part of some larger organisation (eg ICL is in the Russel Group). This gives them access to much more resources than we have. Now the thing is if you don't have the resources to compete with the big boys, you don't have them. Most international projects require some kind of monetary contribution to enter, and if you don't have the cash, you don't get in. It doesn't matter if you could almost afford it.

As for necessary but not sufficient: Being a big institution gives you access to resources that you can use to go places, but that doesn't mean success is guaranteed.

Doug Cartel

Boston, I already said that politics and bureaucracy would prevent this from working properly. I'm just saying that hypothetically it's not a bad idea. I'm trying to find the endowment TCD has access to, but I'm turning up blanks. I would guess it's quite a bit short of the world class institutes. A merger could potentially push our resources up by a huge amount. (Yes I am aware that UCD are in quite a bit of debt at the moment.)

As to the using logical predicates, you're not supposed to be impressed. I just use that kind of stuff because I'm a maths guy not a writer. Unless I put a lot of effort into it, my prose is pretty bad and easily misunderstood. This just makes it easier for everyone.



The distance between TCD and Belfield wouldn't be a problem btw. I used to Work in Edinburgh and they have one main campus in the city centre, the other main one is on the edge of the city, and they have plenty of satellite campuses even further apart.

Alex_Jones

Doug Cartel wrote: »

Boston, I already said that politics and bureaucracy would prevent this from working properly. I'm just saying that hypothetically it's not a bad idea. I'm trying to find the endowment TCD has access to, but I'm turning up blanks. I would guess it's quite a bit short of the world class institutes. A merger could potentially push our resources up by a huge amount. (Yes I am aware that UCD are in quite a bit of debt at the moment.)

As to the using logical predicates, you're not supposed to be impressed. I just use that kind of stuff because I'm a maths guy not a writer. Unless I put a lot of effort into it, my prose is pretty bad and easily misunderstood. This just makes it easier for everyone.



The distance between TCD and Belfield wouldn't be a problem btw. I used to Work in Edinburgh and they have one main campus in the city centre, the other main one is on the edge of the city, and they have plenty of satellite campuses even further apart.

The Fellows would sooner be martyrs than allow UCDD get their hands on the College endowment. Thank God for conservative election proceedures to Fellowship which will stand firm through the coming storms.

Boston

Doug Cartel wrote: »

The distance between TCD and Belfield wouldn't be a problem btw. I used to Work in Edinburgh and they have one main campus in the city centre, the other main one is on the edge of the city, and they have plenty of satellite campuses even further apart.

So does Trinity, the fact your unaware of them is the root problem.

Alex_Jones

Boston wrote: »

So does Trinity, the fact your unaware of them is the root problem.

They're not proper colleges in that they haven't been fully incorporated into the University of Dublin. In Oxbridge, full incorporation involves the granting of a royal charter and this process takes decades. (the College must also demonstrate that they are financially independent for a period of at least 10 years before the university will even consider allowing them be a constituent college).

Didn't the Fellow (I forget his name) who went up against Heggo in the last Provost elections want to build a new college where the Trinity enterprise centre currently is? It's a pity he didn't get elected. There could be a lovely little college (for perhaps 200 or 300 students) down there.

Doug Cartel

Boston wrote: »

So does Trinity, the fact your unaware of them is the root problem.

So what's the problem with the distance again?

Alex_Jones

UCD should fock off. Get your own house in order before trying to leech off Trinity.

Doug Cartel

Alex_Jones wrote: »

UCD should fock off. Get your own house in order before trying to leech off Trinity.

Ha, ha. This is actually quite true. If a merger were done just to fix their deficit, it would be a pretty big disaster.

Alex_Jones

Doug Cartel wrote: »

Ha, ha. This is actually quite true. If a merger were done just to fix their deficit, it would be a pretty big disaster.

This is about a lot more than just a deficit.

Boston

Doug Cartel wrote: »

So what's the problem with the distance again?

Read up.

Alex_Jones wrote: »

They're not proper colleges in that they haven't been fully incorporated into the University of Dublin. In Oxbridge, full incorporation involves the granting of a royal charter and this process takes decades. (the College must also demonstrate that they are financially independent for a period of at least 10 years before the university will even consider allowing them be a constituent college).

They are largely separate entities with little interaction with the "university". Like little forgotten sheep.

El Siglo

All any merger would produce is that the UCD crowd would have their degree parchments from the University of Dublin. Next to postgraduate research collaboration, I can scarcely see any change in the status quo. It was all well and good back in the hey day of sectarianism and bullshit rivalry to object to such a merger. The fact is if both places want to actually have a snowballs chance of getting up the league tables and attracting the ever elusive big research grants then they're going to have to go in with each other.
This distance argument is absolute rubbish! What's the distance, four miles? And that's reason enough to oppose a merger? Ridiculous so it is. The fact is, both places are on the track to a merger anyway, ever since the innovation partnership thing of last March. We're going to Belfield to do research and they're coming into town to do research.
Regarding bureaucracy, well I think it's fair enough to say that both places are as bad as one another and nothing will ever change there, but at least us or Belfield are not as bad as some of our continental European partners. They're can only be benefits made from such a merger, really it boils down to research potential and in fairness both places joining up formally would be pretty damn impressive.
On the college endowment, I doubt Brady will have the chance and I definitely doubt the fellows or Hegarty will give him the chance to get his paws on it, UCD might be in debt but so are a lot of other places. Honestly, some of this thread sounds like children arguing over sweets!:D