11.4.1 Partnership, Mergers and Incorporations
Pre-2000 alliances of higher education institutions in Ireland were rare and where
they did exist, they were generated on a voluntary basis between institutions and
individual researchers (Harkin and Hazelkorn 2015 ). Where these academically and
strategically motivated alignments occurred, the autonomy of the partners was not
disputed. However, the 2004 OECD review of the Irish higher education sector
became the catalyst for significant change in the sector. Greater collaboration
between higher education institutions and a closer alignment of the work of these
institutes with national planning objectives was leveraged through the Programme
for Research in Third-Level Institutions (PRTLI) and the Strategic Innovation
Funding (SIF). Incentivised funding mechanisms challenged institutions to develop
regional collaboration in research and areas such as access, lifelong learning, and
teaching and learning. Regional clusters, such as the Shannon Consortium which
included the University of Limerick, Mary Immaculate College and Limerick
Institute of Technology, were established. While motivated by additional func-
tionality and funding, a significant level of inter-institutional collaboration was
generated.
As the economic crisis in Ireland intensified, the Higher Education Authority
published theNational Strategy for Higher Education to 2030(HEA 2011 ) which
provided the platform for a root-and-branch review of all higher education provi-
sion. With a view to enhancing the‘quality and cost-effectiveness of provision
through shared collaborative provision’(HEA 2012 , p. 9), this strategy heralded the
end of voluntary bottom-up collaboration and the beginning of an‘amalgamate or
perish’(Hinfelaar 2012 ) approach to higher education. In particular, the HEA
targeted the structures of teacher education,‘to identify possible new structures for
teacher education...to envision innovative strategies so that Ireland can provide a
teacher education regime that is comparable with the world’s best’(Hyland 2012 ).
The perceived messy and fragmented problem of 19 autonomous state-funded
providers of teacher education was addressed by an international panel comprising
Professors Pamela Munn and John Furlong, and chaired by Professor Pasi Sahlberg.
The resulting Sahlberg Report ( 2012 ), cognisant of international trends in ITE,
advocated the locating of teacher education within the university with high-quality
instruction in both pedagogy and pedagogical content knowledge, where graduates
would have access to masters and doctoral awards, as well as having the capacity to
engage in research as a basis of teaching and learning. Recognising the importance
of creating a critical mass to achieve the optimum context for ITE, the Panel
recommended that teacher education be consolidated into six centres/clusters, and
that two providers of teacher education be discontinued. With a mixed agenda of
rationalisation and efficiency gains on one hand, and an upgrading of the quality
and status of the institutions on the other (Hinfelaar 2012 , p. 5), thus began the
process whereby levels of‘partnership’between institutions became mandated.
The first merger of an ITE provider, initiated by the institution itself and
pre-dating the Sahlberg Report, occurred when Froebel College, an autonomous
174 T. O’Doherty and J. Harford