Madam, – The recent announcement of a research merger between Trinity and UCD should be greeted with a cautious welcome. Much of the debate on the future of universities and university funding has focused on the suggestion that the State should concentrate Exchequer resources on certain universities. This is usually based on the presumption that there is a saturation of universities, which the taxpayer cannot afford to subsidise.
It should be noted, however, that there are seven universities in the State for a population of 4.2 million (1.67 universities per million). But Massachusetts, for example, has 17 universities for a population of 6.5 million (2.6 universities per million), including Harvard, MIT, Tufts University, Boston University and Boston College, as well as several liberal arts colleges. Indeed, the greater Boston area is regarded by many as the intellectual and academic capital of the world, something that was fostered by the Boston Brahmins of the 18th and 19th centuries, and has been referred to as the Athens of America. There is an expression in the US that in “New York it is what you have, in Philadelphia it is who you know and in Boston it is what you know”.
Although there is certainly a case for consolidation and amalgamation in research and teaching in Irish universities, I question the pernicious and dubious practice of academic rankings, which are open to vacillating fortunes, to justify this. For example, while Trinity can claim a place in the top 50 (49th place in 2008) in the Times Higher Education and Quacquarelli 2008 World University Rankings, Berkeley is ranked in 36th place. However, in the 2008 Academic Ranking of World Universities compiled by Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Institute of Higher Education, Trinity is placed in the ranking 201-302, while Berkeley is ranked 3rd.
Similarly, in the 2008 Times rankings, UCD was placed 108th (up from 177th in 2007), while in the 2008 Shanghai Jiao Tong rankings it was placed in the ranking 303-401. Incidentally, Harvard is ranked first in both rankings.
This is not to denigrate the ranking of Trinity or UCD, which is to be lauded and indeed emulated, but to place perspective on the subjective practice of academic ranking. Surely an objective approach would not yield such wildly disparate results.
I also question the ambitious claims to establish 300 new high- value companies of scale over 10 years and create up to 30,000 jobs, directly and indirectly, by 2018; I would like to see details of the potential companies and enterprises in the pipeline.
Ideally, we should hope and strive for a university system which is collaborative, dynamic and integrated and which optimises resources and facilities. In that regard, the research merger should be applauded.
However, I would suggest that this move be the start of fruitful research clusters, which are discipline-based or located for geographical reasons – such as an Atlantic Alliance between UL, UCC and NUIG – rather than provoking internecine warfare within the academic community.
DAVID BROWNE,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.