The aim of this study is to compare the results of successful mergers in terms of ranking performance of the so called ‘world-class’ universities in a European Union context, with a view to identifying the challenges these universities face in their post-merger situation and strategies. After a content analysis, four themes emerged: crucial factors at the pre-merger phase to ensure a successful merger, the best actions to be performed at the merger phase to ensure a successful merger, the main challenges faced at the post-merger phase, and post-merger strategies in the last phase. Then, we analysed the institutional post-merger strategies to find differences between different mergers. Our research shows that in all cases there is a mix of various local and national/international factors that need to be analysed in the post-merger phase before a merger can be deemed to be ‘successful’ overall, and before the various dimensions of the global impact of the merger can be assessed.

中文翻译：

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欧洲高等教育并购：并购后阶段的比较研究

本研究的目的是在欧盟背景下，在所谓的“世界一流”大学的排名表现方面比较成功合并的结果，以期确定这些大学在合并后面临的挑战和策略。经过内容分析，出现了四个主题：合并前阶段确保合并成功的关键因素，合并阶段为确保合并成功而采取的最佳行动，合并后阶段面临的主要挑战，以及最后阶段的合并后策略。然后，我们分析了机构合并后策略，以发现不同合并之间的差异。