King’s College London to merge with Cranfield University

King’s College London has agreed to merge with Cranfield University, creating a new UK “super-university” that would rival many of its international competitors in size and research output.The merger would result in King’s taking on another 5,000 mainly postgraduate students and becoming the second largest mainstream university in the UK, with about 47,000 students, overtaking the University of Manchester and behind only University College London.Under the agreement the institutions would merge by the end of summer 2027, and be known as King’s College London.The government has already given preliminary approval for the merger to go ahead, at a time when the higher education sector in England is struggling financially.Last year a merger was announced between the University of Greenwich and the University of Kent, while England’s higher education regulator, the Office for Students, on Thursday warned that universities “remain under continued pressure due to volatile student recruitment patterns and rising costs”.Prof Shitij Kapur, King’s vice-chancellor, said: “The merger would bring new educational possibilities for students, new discoveries from academics and a clear focus on working in partnership with industry and government to support national resilience.“This is a deliberate step to bring some of the best of the UK to compete with the best in the world.”Kapur will remain vice-chancellor of the new combined entity.Patrick Vallance, the government’s science and innovation minister, said the merger “creates an extraordinarily powerful university … bringing together two world-class institutions and giving King’s a place at the heart of one of our most important regions for science and technology.“It will create a driver of innovation and growth, capitalise on the complementary strengths and specialisms of both institutions and increase access, capacity and resilience across teaching and research.”Cranfield, based near the town of the same name in Bedfordshire and with another campus in Oxfordshire, was founded after the second world war as a college of aeronautics. More than 90% of its students are postgraduates, concentrating on technology, engineering and management studies.Prof Karen Holford, Cranfield’s vice-chancellor, said: “This merger is an exciting proposition for Cranfield, aligning our deep specialisms in engineering, technology, and management within KCL.“It is an intentional step, which brings Cranfield University’s outstanding applied research, nationally important facilities, sovereign capability, and longstanding industry links to King’s, creating enormous potential.”The OfS reported a “small” improvement in university finances in 2024/5 on Thursday, but warned against “persistent over-optimism” in the sector as it continued to grapple with rising costs and volatile student recruitment.Its annual financial health check found fewer universities fell into deficit in 2024-5 than had been feared. Last year, 43% were forecasting deficits, but the data showed 35.8% of institutions actually recorded a loss.Providers’ forecasts, however, predict a further downturn, with the proportion of universities in deficit expected to rise again to 42.7% for 2025-26 before returning to stronger performances from 2026-27 onwards, if student recruitment increases as expected.Philippa Pickford, OfS director of regulation, said: “We’re pleased to see more institutions are responding to the warning signs, but much of this work appears to be targeted at addressing short-term issues. Put bluntly, that isn’t going to be enough.”While the overall picture was slightly better than anticipated, the financial performance of individual institutions varied significantly, with many larger, research-intensive institutions having to spend more on redundancies and restructuring.Nearly a quarter of English institutions reported additional spending on restructuring, with mass redundancies and course closures across the sector, sending overall restructuring costs up by 21% to £218.2m.Looking ahead, the OfS warned the outlook remained uncertain, as universities absorb the predicted £570m cost of the government’s new international student levy from 2028, and the unknown impact of the crisis in the Middle East on costs and recruitment.Libby Hackett, chief executive of the Russell Group, responded: “This new update confirms that large parts of the sector are under unprecedented financial strain. We need close collaboration and a joined-up policy approach to put universities back on stable footing so they can continue delivering for the UK’s workforce, public services and communities”.According to the OfS report, total sector income grew by 2.7% in 2024-25, due mainly to higher tuition fees and education contracts, but it warned that “improvements at the aggregate level mask substantial variation in financial performance across the sector, and so should be interpreted with caution.”Similarly, adjusted surpluses increased by 14.7%, but this improvement was driven primarily by providers in medium, smaller and specialist institutions, whose combined gains offset a decline in performance among larger research-intensive and teaching providers.