Iceland’s seven universities may soon become five due to mergers

Four of Iceland’s seven universities are mulling mergers, leaving students worried, but one leader involved in the talks has said cooperation will strengthen their specialisms and bring scale.

The University of Iceland and the University of Hólar have signed a letter committing to closer cooperation and a potential merging of operations, while the University of Akureyri and the University of Bifröst are in ongoing, informal talks about a merger.

Edda Matthíasdóttir, the chief executive of Hólar, told Times Higher Education that closer cooperation with the University of Iceland would “enhance the quality in the university system” on the island.

Founded in 1106, Hólar became an agricultural college in 1882 and a university in 2007, although it still hosts only a few hundred students per intake. “No doubt we would benefit from having their large support system, which we can’t accommodate in a small university – that would be for us a huge strength,” Ms Matthíasdóttir said.

But Hólar also had much to add to an institutional “constellation”, she said. The University of Iceland had a strong biology department but did not offer studies in aquaculture, “which is about to become one of the largest industries in Iceland”, Ms Matthíasdóttir explained.

The National Association of Icelandic Students (LÍS) remains unconvinced. Association president Alexandra Ýr van Erven told THE that its main worry was an apparent lack of analysis from the education ministry.

“What we definitely don’t want is drastic changes based on opinions,” she said, comparing the enthusiasm for institutional integration to a shortening of secondary education by a year about a decade ago, which she said was done for financial reasons.

Iceland has lagged its peers when it comes to tertiary education spending, although all the Nordic nations were comfortably above the 1 per cent of GDP OECD average in 2020.

Other LÍS concerns, such as larger classes and less diverse study options, are somewhat allayed by the early ideas from Hólar, which Ms Matthíasdóttir said would remain a distinct entity. The rural partner’s more applied focus meant departments would cross-fertilise rather than collapse into one another, she said.

Interdisciplinary research would also become easier and benefit students in emerging areas, she said, such as psychology majors using horses as an alternative therapy for young Icelanders struggling with communication or anxiety.

She dismissed the LÍS idea that universities were being lured into merging by a thrifty ministry. The signals were that investment was set to climb, Ms Matthíasdóttir said, while the Iceland-Hólar talks began before a recent cooperation incentive fund was announced.

There are still unanswered questions elsewhere, such as whether a potential merger between the public University of Akureyri and the private University of Bifröst would yield a state or for-profit institution.

Accessibility will always be part of the picture too. Although it looks small next to its Scandinavian cousins, travelling between campuses by route one, the island’s main, circuitous motorway, takes many hours.

In a statement, Bifröst’s rector, Margrét Jónsdóttir Njarðvík, said the students’ worries were “understandable” but noted that universities were “bound by law to consult and cooperate with students”.

“Sometimes bigger is simply better, not least when aiming for increased diversity in study offerings, risk management of subjects and research at university level,” she said.

The Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Innovation had not commented on the concerns at the time of writing.

ben.upton@timeshighereducation.com