Curtin’s position
On 10 October 2026, the Western Australian Government announced its intention to undertake a business case to consider merging Curtin University, The University of Western Australia and Murdoch University into a single institution.
Curtin has outlined its position on the proposed university merger in an official statement.
Download the Merger proposal: claim vs fact.pdf [1.3mb]
Curtin’s concerns
Vice-Chancellor Professor Harlene Hayne has said she is concerned that the State Government has jumped to a three-way university merger before clearly defining the problem, with its case resting on a series of claims that do not withstand scrutiny.
“As academics, we start with the evidence. We define the problem, test the assumptions and then determine the solution. On that basis, several of the claims being used to justify a merger simply do not stack up.”
Claims and facts
Jump to a section below ↓
1. The WA university sector
Does WA have too many universities?
There have been claims that Perth has more universities per capita than any other Australian capital city, and that concentrating them into fewer institutions will ensure we’re not ‘spread too thin’. This claim doesn’t hold up. Perth ranks seventh out of the eight Australian capital cities for universities per capita.
| City | Universities1 | Per million people | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canberra | 5 | 10.6 | 2 |
| Darwin | 2 | 13.1 | 1 |
| Adelaide | 4 | 2.72 | 6 |
| Sydney | 18 | 3.24 | 4 |
| Hobart | 1 | 3.92 | 3 |
| Perth | 5 | 2.10 | 7 |
| Brisbane | 9 | 3.24 | 5 |
| Melbourne | 11 | 2.06 | 8 |
* ABS estimated resident population, Greater Capital City Statistical Area, 30 June 2024.
1. Universities list from https://www.studyaustralia.gov.au/en/plan-your-studies/list-of-australia
Are we underserving our regional communities?
There have been claims that a merger would strengthen engagement with regional students, and that a 12.5% regional participation rate across WA universities indicates we have let our regional students down. WA does have the lowest percentage of university students with a regional or remote home address, at 12.5% compared to the national average of 19.7% not 30% as claimed by the WA Government1 , but it also has the lowest proportion of people living outside the metro area. When we consider this, WA ranks ahead of both NSW and QLD.
Breakdown below:
| State | Regional or remote domestic students1 | Metro population2% | Regional population2% | Ratio3 | National rank by ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WA | 12.5% | 78.3% | 21.7% | 0.58 | 5 |
| NSW | 16.6% | 64.2% | 35.8% | 0.46 | 7 |
| VIC | 15.7% | 75.8% | 24.2% | 0.65 | 4 |
| QLD | 28.1% | 48.1% | 51.9% | 0.54 | 6 |
| SA | 18% | 77.3% | 22.7% | 0.79 | 3 |
| NT | 57.8% | 56.6% | 43.4% | 1.33 | 1 |
| ACT* | 15.1% | 100% | 0% | n/a | n/a |
| TAS | 60.6% | 42.5% | 57.5% | 1.05 | 2 |
*By ABS definition, the entire territory is encapsulated within Canberra’s metropolitan catchment area.
1. Australian Department of Education Higher Education Statistics, 2024 Section 11: Equity Groups
2.Australian Bureau of Statistics 2021 Census
3. Ratio is the student share divided by the regional population share.
Would a merger increase student numbers?
The primary goal for the 2023 WA University Sector Review was to increase international and domestic student numbers in WA. However, after the Review, the Federal Government changed the funding model for universities and has tightly capped the number of both international and domestic students each university can enrol; a merger will not increase either. In fact, it may have the opposite effect.
Andrew Norton, Professor of Higher Education Policy at Monash Business School, and Australian higher education policy expert, recently described the impact of the capping policy in relation to mergers.
“The capping policy is also something state governments should think about in their strange enthusiasm for university mergers. Thanks to the University of South Australia/University of Adelaide merger the city of Adelaide will have about 620 fewer student places than if the two universities had remained separate. Merging Murdoch University with one of the larger Perth universities would reduce total places for that city.2”
2The proposed new funding system, part 3: Capping over-enrolments: https://andrewnorton.id.au/2026/07/02/the-proposed-new-funding-system-part-3-capping-over-enrolments
2. Rankings
Are WA universities falling in the rankings?
No. Over the past decade, all four WA public universities have improved in the QS rankings: UWA by 16 places, Curtin by 73, Murdoch by around 100 and ECU by around 230. In the Times Higher Education rankings, Curtin has improved by 105 places and ECU by around 150, Murdoch has remained broadly stable, while UWA has declined from 111th to 173rd. ARWU is the exception, where all four sit lower than at the start of the period but this reflects a nation-wide drop in ARWU and is largely as a result of the rapid rise of Chinese universities. There is always room for improvement, but we’re heading up not down.
Will merging improve rankings?
It’s impossible to predict the effect of a merger on rankings, given the complexity, lack of transparency and significant differences in methodology of the commonly used ranking models.
Historically, merged universities have not achieved a reliable lift in rankings compared to their predecessors. Most recently, the Adelaide merger saw a minor lift in two of the ‘big three’ rankings (QS and ARWU) and a decline in the other (THE), compared to the University of Adelaide previously.
What we can say for certain is that bigger is not better in terms of ranking. In fact, the top ten ranked universities in the world (QS 2027) have an average of only around 24,700 students. Caltech, ranked seventh, has only 2,400.
Are rankings an important consideration for international students?
Our market research (2023) found that rankings don’t play a key role in decision making for domestic or international prospective students. The main drivers of student choice were course selection, university offerings and location. The study found that rankings were only used by one in six international students when choosing a university.
Do higher rankings increase research income?
No. Rankings do not increase research income; rather, research income increases rankings. After the merger of the University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia, the federal government’s 2026 research funding allocation to the merged university was slightly less than the sum of the funding given to two the universities in 2025 when they were separate.
This is because federal research funding is calculated on historical HDR completions and research income, and merging institutions just brings them together.
Likewise, other sources of research income, like competitive grants and industry contracts, are awarded on the basis of the quality of the project proposal, the expertise of the researchers and the potential for real-world impact, not rankings.
The reverse is true, however: research income can increase rankings. The THE World University Rankings counts research income as 5.5% of a university’s score, scaled against the number of academic staff, and sits within a Research environment pillar that carries 29% overall. Industry research income adds another 2%.
A complex federal research funding mechanism means that simply adding universities together does nothing to increase funding. This was the case for the newly merged Adelaide University, where the federal government’s 2026 research funding allocation to the merged university was slightly less than the sum of the funding given to two the universities in 2025 when they were separate.
What does attract federal and industry investment is when state governments lead the way with funding research capability, talent and infrastructure, as demonstrated by Queensland’s multi-billion-dollar Smart State investment, Victoria’s $350 million Higher Education State Investment Fund and NSW’s $703.4 million Future Economy Fund.
3. Cost of a merger
The WA State Government’s Rapid Cost Benefit Analysis (December 2025) includes ‘low’, ‘mid’ and ‘high’ estimates of merging Curtin, Murdoch, UWA. The ‘low’ estimate is $512 million, the ‘mid’ estimate is $681 million, and the ‘high’ estimate is $848 million. These estimates include both up-front costs and ongoing costs over a five-year period. The source of these funds is not determined.
These estimates are lower than the cost of the recent Adelaide merger. That merger is expected to cost more than $1.1 billion, with the South Australian Government budgeting $650 million and $434 million to come from the universities over a five-year period.
Fundamental factors that have shown to be critical to the success of any given merger include co-location, shared culture/vision/mission; unanimous governing council and vice-chancellor support; and staff and student buy-in. None of these factors characterise the situation in WA.
Even with all these factors in its favour, the new Adelaide University has already experienced significant challenges. This includes a $90 million shortfall in revenue in Semester One due to a 40% decrease in international students and 8% in domestic students1. In Semester Two it has had a reported 50% drop in international students2. A survey conducted by the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) in 2023 revealed 75% of staff surveyed were opposed to the merger3. The universities promised no job losses until mid-2027, however this promise only applies to permanent or continuing appointments5. Within less than 12 months, job cuts for staff will begin.
| Critical factors | South Australia | Western Australia |
|---|---|---|
| Co-location | ✓ | ✗ |
| Shared vision | ✓ | ✗ |
| Shared mission | ✓ | ✗ |
| Shared cultures | ✓ | ✗ |
| Academic alignment | ✓ | ✗ |
| Single merged identity | ✓ | ✗ |
| Unanimous Vice-Chancellors’ Support | ✓ | ✗ |
| Unanimous University Councils’ Support | ✓ | ✗ |
| Staff buy-in | ✗ | ✗ |
| Student buy-in | ✗ | ✗ |
| Cost to the State and universities | ✓ > $1.1 billion | TBC |
1 Exclusive: Adelaide Uni in red as international student numbers plummet – News | InDaily, Inside South Australia
2 ABC Radio Adelaide – Breakfast 30/09/2026 8.45am Interview Professor Nicola Phillips, Adelaide University VC
3 https://hansardsearch.parliament.sa.gov.au/daily/lh/2023-06-28/pdf/download
4 https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/newly-merged-mega-university-blighted-teething-problems
5 https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2026/03/05/abmm-m05.html