We tend to think of our universities as old, unchanging institutions – but that doesn’t mean they aren’t capable of shaking things up. And two London universities are proving just that and have decided to merge.
It was announced last week that City, University of London and St George’s, University of London have signed an agreement to merge. They’ll be operating as one from August 2024 under a new combined name: City St George’s.
The combined university will become one of the largest higher education destinations for students in London, as well as one of the city’s largest suppliers of the health workers.
St George’s courses on medicine, pharmacology and biomedical science will complement City’s offering of nursing, midwifery, counselling and speech and language therapy. Together it’ll apparently become a ‘health powerhouse’ for students and researchers, as well as the NHS and its partners.
Professor Sir Anthony Finkelstein, who’s set to be the combined university’s president, said: ‘City St George’s will be the place for rethinking healthcare for the twenty-first century and will undertake research to underpin that.’
Sir Patrick Vallance, alumnus of St George’s and former Government Chief Scientific Advisor, said ‘[The decision to merge the two universities] will bring a broad range of allied health professions together with medicine and provides an exciting opportunity to train the next generations of health professions in an innovative way.’
Though the two universities will start operating as one from the beginning of the next academic year, full integration will still take some time. You can read more about the merger on the City website here.
London’s universities and Time Out
London’s got plenty of world-leading unis, and we’ve covered lots of their recent achievements here at Time Out. Two London institutions were ranking in the top ten in the world by QS, three were named the best in the UK by the Sunday Times and one was in the top ten of the Times Higher Eduction rankings.
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