Wi-Fi pioneer and Adelaide Uni professors lash merger idea

Our unis would go from centres of excellence to regional backwater under the uni merger plan, says Wi-Fi pioneer and Adelaide Uni graduate Neil Weste. And he’s not alone.

The proposed merger between Adelaide University and the University of South Australia will lower research and teaching standards, according to a group of professors, including Neil Weste, an Adelaide graduate who played a vital role in inventing Wi-Fi in the 1990s.

Professor Weste, who has started an online petition opposing the merger, has also said he would not be leaving a bequest to any combined university.

“I certainly will not be making an endowment to a merged university,’’ Prof Weste says in his petition outlining his reasons for opposing the merger. he declined to say how much he intended to leave Adelaide Uni.

Prof Weste and his business partner sold their company Radiata Communications, which developed the microchip that made Wi-Fi a reality, for more than $500 million in 2001.

“I’ve had a very successful career and it all started in the halls of UofA,’’ he said.

The Universities of Adelaide and South Australia announced in December they had entered talks to merge the institutions. A feasibility study is underway and a business case is expected to be announced next month.

Neil Weste.

The combined university, to be called Adelaide University, would start in 2026 and have more domestic students than any other Australian tertiary institution.

The proposal has also been heavily backed by Premier Peter Malinauskas, who called the December agreement an “historic moment for our state’’.

A spokesperson for Adelaide University said the merged institution “would pride itself on offering Australia’s most accessible, contemporary and future-focused teaching and learning experience’’ and “would aim to be globally recognised as Australia’s leading research university’’.

However, in a submission to the feasibility study, the Adelaide Uni chapter of the Australian Association of University Professors wrote that “it seems quite possible that with the loss of ethos and character of a research-intensive university, the merged entity will be more like a large regional university’’.

“A merger will cost a lot of money and may not produce the desired benefits,’’ the submission says.

“Research excellence is not correlated with university size in many other countries.

“Within our university we have witnessed an emphasis on revenue raising and cost cutting, without due regard for the consequences for teaching, research and institutional culture. We are concerned that the proposed merger is an extension of this approach.’’

The submission also expresses concerns that lower standards will make it harder to attract both students and academics.

In the latest university rankings, Adelaide was 88th in the world and Prof Hoj has predicted it will drop out of the top 100 while the merger is bedded down before reclaiming the status.

Prof Weste has proposed a “Plan B”, which would include relocating UniSA from its campus in the city’s east to join up with its base in the west of the CBD, freeing up space for the current Adelaide Uni to expand into. He also said Adelaide university could expand into Lot 14 “greatly enhancing its ability to construct new, world-leading strategic laboratories to maintain international competitiveness’’.

He also said more funding was needed to encourage PhD students, pointing out only 7 per cent of Adelaide students were enrolled in PhDs, compared to 20 per cent at elite US institutions such as Harvard and Princeton.

Adelaide University professor Derek Abbott, who helped solve the mystery of the ‘Somerton Man’ is also against the merger, a concept which has been floated since the 1980s when John Bannon was premier.

“Ever since then the idea comes back from the dead like a zombie every few years and

it’s always proven to be a time waster,’’ he said.