By TIM DODD
HIGHER EDUCATION EDITOR
One of the University of Adelaide’s most eminent scientists has warned the planned merger with the University of South Australia has the potential for huge cost blowouts that would ruin his institution.
Physicist Anthony Thomas, who in 2020 was awarded the highest civilian honour, Companion of the Order of Australia, told a South Australian parliamentary committee he had “never seen a clear, reasoned argument that provides rational support for this (merger) proposal”.
The merger, which the two universities estimate will cost from $500m to $650m, plus $62m in ongoing investment, is strongly backed by SA Premier Peter Malinauskas but can go ahead only if legislation for it is passed by the upper house, which the Labor government does not control.
Professor Thomas told a committee hearing last week the “financial aspects of the merger are potentially disastrous”, stemming from the need to install new IT systems.
“University administrations have a history of huge blowouts when it comes to changes in administrative software,” he said.
“For work as complicated as this … I would be astonished if the cost was less than half a billion dollars, with a completion time less than a decade. I have been informed of one software engineer who suggested that the cost could be in excess of $1bn.
“There has been no mention of how, if it were to be realised, such a cost might be covered. If it were to come from operating funds it has the potential to destroy the operation of the new university for many years.”
Professor Thomas told The Australian he could not understand why no analysis was done of the alternative of spending the amount required for a merger on the two universities separately.
“If the $1bn was spent over the next five-10 years on the existing universities’ research and teaching, you would be guaranteed to have very strong institutions without risk,” he said.
An injection of $100m into research at the University of Adelaide would make a “tremendous difference” and attract more international students, which was one of the aims of the merger.
“You could actively recruit high-flying researchers and give them the labs that they need to do outstanding work that would boost the university’s reputation, and if you boost the university’s reputation you boost the overseas students,” Professor Thomas said.
He said another problem was that a merged university would have to teach the students with higher ATARs who went to the University of Adelaide as well as those with lower ATARs at UniSA. “You can’t teach those students in the same classroom.”
Professor Thomas said a merger would cause chaos at departmental level.
“For years after a merger, academic staff time will be dominated by unproductive administrative tasks aimed at making sense of the new system. The time for research will be significantly reduced and along with it the research reputation of the new institution,” he told the committee.