Various global, European, and national developments have promoted reorganization within the Finnish higher education system. The purpose is to generate (inter)nationally a more competitive network of higher education institutions, enhance the quality of research and education as well as identify and recognise strategic areas in research and education (Opetusministeriö 2008). Similar developments have also taken place in other higher education systems in Europe during the last decade (see Kyvik 2004; Liefner, Schätzl & Schröder 2004; Teichler 2006). In order to achieve these educational policy goals the Finnish Ministry of Education prepared a new Universities Act and promoted mergers of Finnish universities. Both the new act and new universities came into being at the beginning of 2010. Previous studies on university mergers show that the consolidation of organizational and institutional cultures (Kezar & Eckel 2002) and management styles (Locke 2007) of the merging universities plays a crucial role. Mergers can also affect professional identities of academics either by providing better career prospects or weakening identities by changing drastically the nature of academic work (Becker et al. 2004). Furthermore, a merger is dependent on the interaction of governmental macro-politics and institutional micro-politics (Sehoole 2005) as well as geographical distance (Dahl, Norgård & Skodvin 2002), which thus create a specific merger context. Therefore, it is important to recognize that each merger is organizationally, culturally and territorially unique. Universities often fear to lose their individuality and distinctiveness in the mergers (Temple & Whitchurch 1994). Locke (2007) also points out that universities are based on different academic and scientific cultures and it is not a realistic goal trying to achieve a joint culture to a merging university (see also Becher & Trowler 2001). Thus, a ‘new culture’ often relates to the similarity of organizational structures rather than affinity of academic cultures. There are only few studies focussing on how academic staff and students experience a merger process. Hence, the purpose of the paper is to describe how the academic staff and students of Finnish universities are reacting to mergers from the perspective of teaching and learning. Detailed research questions are: -What consequences does the merging process have on teaching and learning? -What advantages and disadvantages do academics and students relate to university mergers?

The target group consists of four university mergers (in brackets is the number of universities involved): Aalto University (3), University of Eastern Finland (2), University Consortium of Turku (2), and University Alliance Finland (3). The first three mergers legally started 1.1.2010. The last-mentioned is an exception, however, as the three universities that form the alliance will not actually merge but just enhance their cooperation and rationalize their activities. The data consist of semi-structured interviews (N = 30). The interviewees were selected from various levels of university: from management to students. The data was analysed by means of content analysis.

The results show that each merger has its unique features and challenges based on the cultural and historical roots of the universities concerned. Therefore, it is no surprise that academic staff and students had prejudices regarding the success of a merger. What was common for each merger was that the new educational openings were very conservative. On the one hand this reflects the fact that radical educational innovations in a merger easily raise concerns and resistance among academics. On the other hand full effects of a merger were expected to appear after several years. All the mergers highlighted the importance of systematic enhancement of pedagogical competences of their staff which so far has primarily been on the responsibility of an individual scholar. Finally the results show that consolidation of a joint value basis, organizational and institutional culture as well as management was challenging (see Kezar & Eckel 2002; Locke 2007). The interviewees stressed the importance of transparency during the merger process and lack of open communication was one of the main obstacles of a successful merger.