Small With Might

14 March 2009 – In an unprecedented move, Lincoln University, New Zealand’s smallest with just 2,600 full-time students and 610 staff, will merge with government-owned AgResearch “in order to capitalise on the institutions’ strengths and deliver more value for the country’s land-based industries.” Lincoln University vice-chancellor Professor Roger Field said the aim of the proposal was to build critical mass in an area important to New Zealand’s economy and he expected it would result in growth in postgraduate enrolments. “The opportunity to expand postgraduate activity is huge and that would be on all the campuses,” he said. Field said the merger would put Lincoln alongside leading land-based institutions such as Wageningen in the Netherlands, the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University in Denmark, and Cornell in the USA.