Institutional mergers: getting to Day 1

Advance HE’s Kim Ansell speaks to Professor Elisabeth Hill, Deputy President and Provost about the City St George’s merger as part of our new Member Benefit project 'The Big Conversation: the future of higher education governance'.

Prof Elisabeth Hill was City, University of London’s senior lead for the merger between City, University of London and St George’s, University of London which took place on 1 August 2024. This blog sets the scene for a future co-produced insight report about getting to merger Day 1, an output from The Big Conversation project.   

Advance HE and City St George’s, University of London are working together to create a resource for the higher education sector, to share practice and insights from a journey that explores decisions, ways of working and key milestones leading to the merger. Through this work we hope to influence policy and inform sector guidance to benefit other institutions considering merger. 

To understand the City St George’s story and offer useful insights, we will listen to a range of perspectives, including those on the governing bodies and Executives who had oversight for this merger, as well as some of the key Professional Services in the run up to merger Day 1. This work complements our Governing and Leading Transformation Member Benefit series for 2024/25.  

‘It’s all about people’

In a recent podcast, the City St George’s President, Professor Sir Anthony Finkelstein, said of merger, “It’s all about people”.  

For university leaders, mergers present a unique and formidable challenge: navigating the intricate web of connections that ripple across every aspect of the organisations involved, so, the natural place to start is with the vision. This is the driving force which informs the strategic direction, guides decision-making, and facilitates the right terms and conditions for merger. 

Pre-merger, a senior team and the governing body of any institution will hope to have several strategic options – it was generally known that St George’s, University of London had been exploring options for merger and I asked Elisabeth how they knew there would be a good strategic fit? 

“We knew that there was strong alignment between the importance of developing students for the world of work, delivering impactful and innovative research, and creating the health professions for the future. There was virtually no overlap in our academic portfolios and we saw this as a key indicator of good strategic fit. On this basis, our governing bodies agreed to continue discussions. These early conversations were followed with significant due diligence at both universities.” 

Culture

Clearly culture is a critical factor to consider at all stages in any merger. Indeed, we plan to explore this in more detail in our forthcoming insight report but what were some of the distinctive attributes about the culture that were specific to the City St George’s merger?   

Elisabeth: “Preserving the 270+ year history of St George’s Hospital Medical School, and St George’s, University of London which was its most recent incarnation was critical for St George’s. 

“The new name was proposed very early on, however we still had to research the name, put forward and test different variations of it with stakeholders, and discuss the proposal with external bodies including the University of London, and apply to and support a name consultation by the Office for Students. We undertook due diligence to evaluate and genuinely understand potential risks and consequences of adopting the name proposed.”   

In a Process, People, Product triangle there will be much work to be done to integrate ways of working and how things get done. However, if a new narrative for the merged organisation is to be created, incorporating the stories and values of legacy organisations and cultural aspects about place, identity, character and status will all come into play. With this in mind, I asked Elisabeth what specific cultural considerations she would suggest institutions prioritise in the period leading up to the official merger date (Day 1). 

“Think carefully about the conditions and requirements of the transfer agreement. What really matters to people may not easily be conveyed in or be relevant to a transfer agreement, so it is best to think clearly about what is required for each aspect of the pre-merger work. 

“It is so important to spend time building trust and confidence that the things that are not relevant or perhaps essential from the perspective of the legality of merger, but which are among the most important issues of merger from a personal perspective, will be addressed.”  

Sharing

At Advance HE our experience is that deciding when and how much information to share with stakeholders is always difficult. Apart from legal/regulatory requirements or constraints which likely trump everything else, the three key factors which might influence what is shared are: the governance principles you commit to as an organisation for transparency; the need to recognise what is commercially sensitive; and the wellbeing and safeguarding aspects for staff and students. What were the trickiest information sharing aspects that you had to navigate? 

Elisabeth: “At the start we were open with stakeholders that merger discussions were taking place and that these discussions were based on strategic intent. We could offer no other detail at this early stage: both universities were conscious that too much information too soon could be disruptive and create needless anxiety, while saying nothing would also be destabilising for people. 

“We were also careful to coordinate our communications to ensure clarity and consistency across both our communities and to make sure that our communications were relevant to the different audiences and addressed their specific concerns. Strong engagement with prospective students was particularly critical, mindful that the idea of a merger might be unsettling for some, and we worked hard to mitigate any such concerns and tell a very positive story. 

“We worked extremely closely with our two Students’ Unions to manage timing and content of communications to current students. It is important to remember that students are not one homogenous group: we firmly believed that segmenting our communications to be relevant, timely and in their best interests was a critical responsibility.    

“Once we had signed a ‘transfer agreement’ setting out a range of conditions to be completed in order for merger to occur, the communication plan was enhanced, with a focus on tailored and appropriate communications for our different stakeholder groups.” 

Key takeways

My discussion with Elisabeth was fascinating and it is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the City St George’s journey to Day 1 of the merger.  The main things I learned so far are:   

1. Ensure a robust and wide-ranging evaluation of all the strategic options available before embarking on a merger journey – get your vision crystal clear.
2. Communicate carefully with stakeholders and reflect on their reactions to different aspects of the change, to feed into decision-making as well as to anticipate the consequences of actions and decisions and to identify and mitigate risk.
3. Support Board members to be clear on which decisions are theirs to make and where advice changes a planned approach, as well as how they can best add value to the merger work.
4. Work closely with the Students’ Unions to understand what is important to your students, to manage timing and content of communications to them and to provide appropriate support as they manage their own merger.
5. Think carefully about the pre-merger terms and conditions and what does (not) need to be worked on or finalised before merger Day 1.
6. Don’t underestimate how much resource, time and money is required to deliver major strategic transformation to Day 1.

I am sure that our future insight report will be of value to many senior leaders and policy advisors across the sector.  

Kim Ansell is Senior Consultant Governance and Leadership at Advance HE. Kim Ansell has worked across higher and professional education providing support to groups at all levels including senior leadership teams and Boards, to facilitate change, strategic thinking, planning and performance improvement. Find out more about Kim.