Staff working at the universities of Kent and Greenwich say they “still have hundreds of questions” as the official merger date approaches.

The two south-east institutions will officially become a “superuniversity” on 1 August after announcing their intention to come together last year.

The new entity, known as London and South East University Group (LASE), will very quickly be thrown into the clearing process and preparations for the new academic year.

While leaders have stressed the two universities will retain their own identities, with some functions slowly merged over time, unions have raised fears that there are “many unknowns” as the crunch point approaches.

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Ruth Ballardie, co-chair of the Greenwich University and College Union (UCU) branch, said that the university opened a consultation on the structure for the merger in June – two months before it was due to be completed. While the consultation received 62 responses, none were taken on board, she claimed.

She said this was “just disrespectful, and risky for the institution’s survival”.

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“If you look at the literature on change management, this is not the way that change management should happen, as it is a complete top-down process – especially when it’s as massive as this, as a merger of two universities with very different cultures,” she said.

Staff are “stressed”, she said, adding that there are still a lot of unknowns around the details of how the university will operate.

While it has been confirmed that staff currently at Kent will keep their current terms and conditions, including pensions, as part of the merger, questions remain over what contracts new staff will be offered.

Charlie Hall, chair of the Kent UCU branch, said “there’s a hundred different things we don’t know [about] how things will look once we’ve merged”, but said that this isn’t “entirely unexpected”.

The merger process has been designed “so they can merge without huge change, and then they can gradually, incrementally implement changes down the line”, he said, “which is what we’ve got to be alive to as a union that they don’t slip things through the back door once we merge”.

He described the process as being a “mixed bag”, praising the decision to allow Kent staff to retain access to the Universities Superannuation Scheme, despite the Teachers’ Pension Scheme being the main academic pension at Greenwich as part of its post-92 agreement.

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However, Hall said the universities had been less good in their handling of the proposed new structure of the university, which will have three schools operating across both institutions. This will include a school of education and medicine, business and society, as well as a school for science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics – “which doesn’t seem like a logical pairing”, he said.

Hall said staff still have concerns over job losses, despite being told by the university that “they are not on the horizon”.

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“The burning question I think that most of our members have, which I share, is when are we going to start seeing the push towards efficiency savings, with or without potential job losses,” he asked.

Overall, Hall said “we all broadly want to succeed at this stage” but noted there will be more challenges to face in the coming years.

“In a way, this pre-merger stuff is actually fairly gentle. It’ll be what happens in the next few years that is when we start having a very different conversation, once we’ve had to live through the first year of LASE governance.”

Asked for comment, both universities sent the same statement that said they have taken an “open and transparent approach from the start of this process”, engaging early with staff and the unions.

They said that when the merger is completed, staff contracts and terms and conditions will remain the same. The current trade union agreements will remain in place, and they are in discussion with the unions about what any future changes might look like.

“We have continued to keep everyone updated on timelines and provided information and opportunities to engage as the merger has progressed. This has included consultations on the proposed high-level leadership model for the new Group and the TUPE transfer process. Responses to key themes and common issues raised in the consultations have been shared with staff.”

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juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com