| As a result of public investigations into the needs of higher education in Northern Ireland, the government ordered The New University of Ulster (NUU) and Ulster polytechnic (UP) to formally amalgamate by September 1984. NUU was seen by some as an ailing rural institution that had failed to respond to the economic and social needs of the Province. UP was a Belfast-based institution, funded according to a different system to universities, with an apparently more relevant and successful record.; To bring about such a controversial and unique merger, a steering committee was established whose membership excluded officers of the two institutions, the latter being accorded observer status only. Public submissions were sought by the committee as to what the new institution should try to achieve and how it should be structured.; When the researcher arrived at NUU (February 1983), the former Rector of UP had been appointed Vice Chancellor of the new institution. Additional senior appointments were made soon afterwards.; For nine months, the researcher used three procedures to analyse the merger: document analysis (merger submissions and minutes, press clippings), questionnaire and participant observation. The concern throughout the research was to discover what was involved in a merger; which perceived goals had the greatest bearing on ultimate outcomes; what was the relationship between the autonomy and accountability of a university; and what place human development had in the structures of merger planning.; If governments spend public money seeking ideas about the goals and structures of higher education, then they could devise more effective ways of processing and implementing such submissions. Most decisions at Ulster were taken by a small elite. The major assumption of government, that a university could make a significant impact on economic conditions, was never challenged by those responsible for the merger.; Gaps in planning include: poor communication processes; preoccupation with the mechanics of merger at the expense of ideological and human dimensions; limited use of higher education models; failure to provide proper educational rationale. |
