King’s College London to merge with Cranfield University

Merged institution will become second largest mainstream university in UK with about 47,000 students King’s College London has agreed to merge with Cranfield University, creating a new UK “super-university” that would rival many of its international competitors in size and research output. The merger would result in King’s taking on another 5,000 mainly postgraduate students and becoming the second largest mainstream university in the UK, with about 47,000 students, overtaking the University of Manchester and behind only University College London. Under the agreement the institutions would merge by the end of summer 2027, and be known as King’s College London. The government has already given preliminary approval for the merger to go ahead, at a time when the higher education sector in England is struggling financially. Last year a merger was announced between the University of Greenwich and the University of Kent, while England’s higher education regulator, the Office for Students, on Thursday warned that universities “remain under continued pressure due to volatile student recruitment patterns and rising costs”. Prof Shitij Kapur, King’s vice-chancellor, said: â