Officials at National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (NTUST), National Pingtung University of Science and Technology (NPUST) and National Yunlin University of Science and Technology yesterday said that they would promote a merger of the three.

If successful, it would be the largest higher-education merger in Taiwan’s history.

The new institute would have more than 1,200 lecturers and 32,000 students, the universities said.

While they have yet set a timetable for the merger, they said that they hope to have plans approved at university council meetings by the end of this year.

The plan has been reported to the Ministry of Education, they said.

The goal is to have the new institute recognized as a top Asian university in three to five years after the merger, they said.

NTUST president Liao Ching-jong said that he and NPUST president Tai Chang-hsien began discussing a merger between three about a month ago.

They agreed that having a third technological university from central Taiwan would make the new university more globally competitive, Liao said.

As the goal is to increase scale, none of the three universities would be downsized, Tai said.

Given that the process would involve many legal issues, they have asked lawmakers to help promote amendments to regulations covering public universities, Tai said.

If the merger succeeds, it would become a new model for mergers, he said.

National Yunlin University of Science and Technology president Yang Neng-shu (楊能舒) said that he would be happy to see the plan succeed, adding that he would establish a panel to handle tasks related to the plan.

While the three have not decided on a name for the new institute, they said they have agreed that “National Taiwan University of Science and Technology” would likely be kept.

The three might be renamed NTUST’s Taipei campus, Yunlin campus and Pingtung campus, they said, adding that the final name must be agreed to by all three universities.

Yang Yu-hui, director of the ministry’s Technological and Vocational Education Department, said that she would be happy to see the merger succeed, as long as it would help make the universities more competitive and that there would be no exchange of benefits.

Expenses, faculty and student numbers are expected to remain the same for the three following the merger, Yang Yu-hui said.