If this is true, it's a real reason to celebrate!

Can't wait for confirmation to come!!!!

"UCL and Imperial College have now completed an intense period of deliberation since it was first announced that the two Colleges were exploring the desirability and feasibility of merger between the two institutions. A number of areas for future collaboration have been identified, but the overall conclusion is that the best interests of the two institutions are not served by a formal merger. UCL is now recommencing its search for a new Provost from October 2003. Once in post the new Provost and the Rector of Imperial College may well continue discussions on developing the opportunities for collaboration identified in the last five weeks."

from:

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/proposedmerger/

So it's officially cancelled? Let's hope the rector takes this "recommendation" and gives up!

Thanks goodness for that. At least now the culturally rich traditions and multi-faculty heritage of UCL will be preserved against scientific dilution by South Ken's people in white coats.

We only need to look at the current state of dissatisfaction over Sir Derek's previous merger project at Glaxo SmithKline - with the chief exec John Pierre Garnier demanding hefty pay increases and share options while leading scientists are leaving the company and share values are falling - to see what a disastrous move this merger would have been for both universities.

At least common sense and respect for academic standards, both in terms of research and study, have prevailed.

Dear Fiona,

Please think before you post...

I'm an Electronic Engineer by trade, a course which IC excels at.

It's an engineering degree, along with a huge majority of the courses at Imperial.

As far as i am aware, there is no "white coat" requirement for most of the degrees at Imperial.

Plus, i think you have got up too early, it was Sir Richard who masterminded the GSK mergers, not Sir Derek, more reading required on Knights of the Realm i think...

regards,

Sam

Yup, the official notification is wandering about the staff lists now.

NOOOOO, now we can't asset strip UCL where are we going to get our money from?

Now ulu can stop banging on about the merger and properly address the issue of Fees without confusion.

thanks sam, i stand corrected about sir richard. obviously one of the 'lies' that was being perpetrated down at gower street was that white coats were going to be delivered in bulk from jan 2 onwards just to help the tidal wave of cultural integration along happily. sad if it is the case that such a crude stereotype was so inaccurate after all. i'm sure that's all anyone was bothered about. or was it the daunting prospect in the drop of the girl-boy ratio that had everyone running for cover?

Roll on the merger with Kings and LSE!!!

You've all missed the point. He's abandoned this merger because he's setting his sights even higher.

I'm told that a leaked Level 5 document suggests a possible invasion of Poland.

Well there's a relief. It's nice to see that IC and UCL's distinctiveness can survive and that staff were listened to. It gives hope that the smaller colleges of UL will also make it.

Hopefully something will come of closer links across the university. Anyone know what kind of collaboration is being considered?

J.

Flying Pig - good call. Let's nobble those governmental confusniks on their understanding of top up fees, and get this issue-clouding merger out of the way - drinks on me in the bar tonite...

Prince Albert:

Poland Shmoland.

Sir Richard sykes cancelled the merger because on sunday night, he was looking out of the window and saw the moon.

"We can consolidate our position as the largest rocky body in the solar system, the EarthMoon (as the merged body will be known) will then be positioned to compete more effectively in the field with Mars and Venus. A long term strategy aimed at aquiring Venus's dense atmosphere will allow us to diversify into the Gas market with a long term aim to compete with the smaller gas giants.

Of course, interim restructuring will be required. There will be many redundancies amoung all carbon based lifeforms in the aftermath of the impact.

In the post merger environment, expansion may create a new demand for a carbon based roll in EarthMoon, and to that end we will need to outsource to a rump department of carbon based lifeforms. In order to secure the adequate management consultancy, Earth will set up a spin off (on a space station) management team to be contracted back in as consultants during the interim merger and medium term "aftermath" period."

Sir Richard is widely tipped to be the CEO of the new company which is expected to be based on the ISS. A review is underway.

Further to the idea of South Kensington being a hot bed of white coated Philistines:

In the Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department at Imperial, (which is the only one of which i can speak of authoratively) there are a fantastic range of options on offer to the Students, which are unrelated to EEE. At the current time of writing, there are more than 39 Humanities options in the 3rd and 4th year. These range from Languages to Professional Skills right onto Management.

On my current course (I've been on more than one stream ;o) you have to take at least 1 Humanity in the 3rd year. The choice is yours, however the departmental teaching programme is specifically designed to give you time during the day to complete these options. It's a fully supported, integral part of your degree.

Now my memory is getting hazy, but someone recently reminded me of the time I was looking at Course (it was a good few years ago now) and that the Humanities provision at UCL has much less depth and breadth.

Now I would be happy to concede that as a College, UCL has a more varied and cosmopolitan course list. However within a specific course (again I have only knowledge of EEE) the title of "Philistine" would be definitely won by the UCL student.

How will the big greasy one at gower street deal with this developement?

Will she argue that now the merger is finished so are top-up fees?

Or will the other ULU colleges wake up to the fact that they are being lead a merry dance.

Well the merger appears to have fallen basically because no-one at UCL trusted Sir Derek and felt that Imperial would clobber academics with redundancies (not something that has been borne out in merger plans released/leaked to date).

What will be interesting will be whether those UCL departments that capitulated (e.g. Computer Science) act unilaterally. Even if Imperial poached a few leading research groups in science and engineering (and we already have a track record of poaching whole labs from Oxbridge) that could yet destabilise UCL - and create the sort of "merger" (an Imperial take-over where the proverbial wheat is sorted from the chaff) that UCL academics were worried about much more easily.

Senior management at both Colleges believe merger is the right way to go. I don't think we've seen the last of this. Although, with merger talks having failed once, it makes it harder to do it again.

But what will this new un-merged institution be called? I suggest:

Imperial, College London

Well, this e-mail from the rector makes it official, I guess. Yahoo!

"Dear Colleague

As you know, we have spent the last month in an intensive, open investigation of the desirability and feasibility of merger with UCL. We had

originally intended to make our findings and recommendations known to the respective Councils on 19 December. However, it has already become clear that the best interests of our two institutions are not served by a formal

merger. In particular, the UCL executive team did not consider that they would be able to secure sufficient staff support for merger at this time.

I know how much extra work the proposed merger has caused staff and students throughout the College over the past few weeks and I thank you for that. It is a pity we did not complete the first phase of the investigative process as planned. I do, however, believe the whole exercise has been valuable and

that opportunities for future collaboration have been identified.

Obviously, I am disappointed that the broader vision, which I believe to be a good one, will not be realised. Imperial College remains a renowned, world class institution and I am sure we can all work together to continue to build on that excellence and secure the funding we need to remain a global competitor.

Richard Sykes"

Remark to Fiona: So, should we counter the scientist-labcoat stereotype with that of the pothead artists?

Prince A, you're bing limited by your acute sense of classical grammaticalness. I suggest a more ironic and post-modern arrangement:

I,mperial CollegeLondon

Beautiful!

Re - Philistines....

I really hate the fact that you can know nothing about science and get away with it (even be proud and joke about it) and yet if you don't know anything about the arts you become a philistine.

GRRRRRRRRR

But more importantly I feel sorry for UCL. At least engineers, scientists and people with maths degrees are in demand (indeed there is a shortage of them). However for people studying the arts, surely the prospect of paying ridiculously high fees just to doss about at University (and not improve their chances of getting a job) will put them off ever applying.

If IC and the sciences are so great, why can't IC fill its courses then?

Hmmmm.

I think there are a lot of points being missed here.

In August, the College was due to recive formal notification of whether or not it would be allowed to hold reserve degree awarding powers; something it has craved for many years. This decision has not yet, if it has indeed been made, been released.

Does anyone think that the decision to pospone the merger could have anything to do with this? People have talked about leaving the University of London, but this may not have been an option...

And if it did, does anyone think that a proposed (and then subsequently failed) merger could have merely been a strategy for re-establishing the Imperial brand? For re-iterating the fact that we are 'different' from the rest of the University? Does anyone actually know what the consultants said about re-branding? Who cares about a comma when you are discussing changing the fundamentals of the institution...

Finally, what about the Government Review of Higher Education? The focus from the last few months has been solely on finance, but 'word on the street' is that it will go alot further; with widespread implications for degree classifications (there won't be any), entry requirements (the scraping of the A-level) and the possibilities of vertical students from Europe...

in reply to Oli(UCL):

Because we don't drop our entry grades like some Universities.

in reply to Informed:

Given all te recent publicity, IC certainly seems like one of the more commercially aware and driven Universities - which I think is a good thing.

Dear Mr "Informed",

1. The decision on whether to grant degree awarding powers was delayed in the summer. It is now expected in the New Year.

2.There had been no firm decision on whether the merged College would leave the University. If you look through the merger board minutes you will note that there was a serious concern expressed by the Humanities and Arts departments that they wished to remain within the University, to retain links with other Colleges and to retain the UL brand for degrees. On a practical note, UL own the land on which UCL is sited and it would have been much harder for a combined College to leave UL than Imperial on its own. I don't think that membership of UL would have been a major factor. While Sir Richard has expressed an aspiration to be independent, its also not a priority, because, well, let's face it, it doesn't actually make that much difference to most of us either way.

3. I think you are being very naieve to suggest the merger was a publicity stunt. Sir Richard, like us, wants Imperial College to succeed. He genuinely belives that a merger with UCL would be the best strategy for the College. We may disagree with his view but we should respect it as being well intentioned. Also, in my opinion, the merger did not generate nearly as much 'publicity' for Imperial as the annoucement on fees. It was ?10,500 fees at Imperial that were raised at PM's Questions. It was ?10,500 fees at Imperial that were the subject of heated debate on BBC1's Question Time that week. Everyone I know (friends, family, etc) from outside College and ULU circles have spoken to me about fees but virtually nothing has been said about merger - they really don't care and aren't interested in it. (OK, there's one exception: my sister. But she's a UCL student...)

4. And yes the Government's reivew of higher education is expected to be wide-ranging. Yes a review of degree classifications is expected. But frankly I don't care. The current system (where the government claims a 2:1 at Imperial is exactly the same as a 2:1 at University of Bognor Regis is a farce). As for A Levels. Again, the current system is a joke and needs to be scrapped. Whether it's back to the Old A Levels or a European-style bacculareat, well, I'm not really that fussed. Well, I have a view of course, but it's not something I care about in the same way as tuition fees. If they gave schools and students the choice of offering both types of qualification (as well as genuinely respected vocational courses) I'd be happy. And frankly, I think 90% of students here would agree.

Forgot to mention, if you read the branding consultants' report - as I have, you'll notice that they make great play on the fact that Imperial is focussed on "science" (in its broadest meaning). Any merger with a more wide-ranging institution does not strengthen the brand.

Well this ex-ULU "Muppet" thinks it's absolutely hilarious! I expect Zellick to now order the ritual hanging of Sykes and Roberts in Torrington Square for attempted high treason...

UCL, IC and UL - three fine institutions, and long may they continue. Next scalp to get - Hodge please, after her typically smug performance on On The Record on Sunday.

Hodge's scalp... hmmm... Does UL have a mechanism of revoking someone's degree? Very unlikely I know, but just a thought ;-)

To revoke someone's degree would probably require one of these things to happen:

1) An Act of Parliament - such as "The Margaret Hodge (Dissolution of Academic Achievements) Act 2002" :)

2) The Queen in Council (ie. Robin Cook as The Visitor) to resolve this, under the powers of The Charter (Not any judiciary Court, as as a proper university, we fall under the realm of Vistors)

And I can't think of any other routes...

OK, given that Zellick's about to retire and would apparently have nothing to lose, what are the chances of getting to him to petition the visitor?

Perhaps we could revoke Sykes' degree too. And his job.

Sykes a primeval universal force?

Yahoo news

Well, Hodge obviously didn't learn very much while at the LSE, so then her degree must have been a mistake! The Vistor must hear about this ;-)