We are still looking on the bright side of our arduous university merger

There’s simply no precedent for what we’re doing in merging two major Australian universities. That’s the honest truth. And, sometimes, that can test one’s faith.

A traditional takeover, where one entity acquires the other, offers a tried and tested route to a promised land of synergy, at least in the corporate world. However, our decision to embark on an iterative journey of creation, where we take the best parts of our founding institutions to reimagine our future, offers a brightly shining guiding star but little in the way of a map.

By doing things we’ve never done before, and with no real rule book to help us, we’re sometimes left doubting ourselves, worrying about being led up the wrong track, wryly bringing to mind Brian’s overly enthusiastic followers in Monty Python’s Life of Brian asking whether it would be better to follow the Holy Shoe or the Holy Gourd. Who’s to say either choice is the right one, really.

Now, at the halfway point towards the official manifestation of the new Adelaide University on 1 January 2026, we find ourselves balancing states of reflection about how far we have come and how far we still have to go. If we’re to sing from the same hymn sheet come Day One, we must continue to ideate and iterate until we find the right harmonies.

It’s no major revelation (and probably little surprise to anyone who knows us) that we don’t and won’t always get it right. Adelaide University is the first comprehensive Australian university to be established this century and the first to be created through a merger of established universities on this scale. But this unique confluence of firsts affords us with unrivalled opportunities to be truly inventive and to accelerate educational progress.

Some of this comes from delivering on a unifying ambition bold enough to gather 3,000 academics and teaching innovation experts – people who have previously been competing for 30-odd years – to develop 1,500 new courses. Some of it comes from establishing a base of 300 tech applications that will help make Adelaide University the first university in Australia to have a fully integrated digital experience technology suite connecting our website, customer data platform and customer relationship management system. And some of it comes from formally engaging well over 200 industry partners to better understand their diverse needs and to best equip our future graduates for their future professional careers.

Some of our innovation is driven by necessity. One example is how we approached a mechanism for the effective transfer and alignment of employment and implementation of new ways of working for some 6,000 full-time equivalent staff in a way that minimises impact on students. Another is redefining our integration management framework (something our integration partner has never seen in this shape or at this level in all their experience of mergers and acquisitions – and they’ve seen a thing or two globally) to move us from a milestone mindset to one of rallying for readiness.

Unsurprisingly (as in every academic enterprise), we can make stuff very complicated if we don’t try very hard to simplify it. It feels like every day there’s a new acronym for something or a process for a process, or – a personal favourite of ours – a policy on policies. But it’s in this iterative state that we learn the most, more good than bad.  

For all the trials of faith, we continue to fervently believe in our chosen path. History shows us that takeovers, while swift, often leave organisations grappling with suboptimal integration years later (just look at the global financial sector). Merging two distinct academic congregations would probably be even less successful without a lot of work now to ensure a genuine marriage of equals, whose matrimony holds for richer and for poorer. Put differently, the upfront and somewhat drawn-out pain entailed by a respectful merger ultimately offers a shorter path to a stronger unified culture, ready to deliver on an ambitious vision.

We were reminded recently that what we’re doing is much, much bigger than just us and goes further than our four eight walls. In China, where we hosted our first Asia launch events, we saw at first hand the power of Adelaide University’s proposition – with a palpable energy and belief in our balanced vision of excellence, equity and outstanding experience from our education agents and global partners.

It’s undeniable that, together, we can do big things. Whether it’s harnessing our solar and wind advantages to further position South Australia as a global energy leader or partnering with Nasa to help humanity’s most diverse crew of lunar astronauts successfully reach the moon.

Yes, we may lack the guidance of commandments etched in tablets of stone, laying out the rules for how to do all this. And yes, our iterative road is long and winding. But we wouldn’t have it any other way. You can’t create a brave new academic world in seven days – we’re in this for the longer haul.

That’s fitting because universities – even brand new ones – endure. Ours is a journey of learning, and, as Brian ultimately learned on his journey, you should always look on the bright side of life.*

David Lloyd is vice-chancellor of the University of South Australia and Peter Høj is vice-chancellor of the University of Adelaide.