EDINBURGH Napier is set to quit its historic Merchiston campus as university bosses say the location is "no longer fit for the future".
The campus is reportedly facing repair costs of £220 million due to concerns over RAAC concrete in the building, which dates back to 1964.
Napier Technical College first opened to students at the site, which is integrated into a historic 15th-century tower where John Napier (the university's namesake) was born, 62 years ago.
A spokesperson for Edinburgh Napier University said: “We continue to provide life-changing teaching for students alongside leading research and innovation.
“Our Merchiston campus is no longer fit for the future, and we want to provide enhanced facilities going forward. We are therefore now considering alternative options elsewhere, and this process is in its early stages.”
Meanwhile there are also plans for the university to form a "strategic alliance" with Queen Margaret University (QMU) and Scotland's Rural College (SRC), though sources insisted what is being proposed is not a merger.
At the same time, Edinburgh Napier has also revealed it plans to bring its five academic schools (business, applied sciences, health and social care, arts and the creative industries, computing, engineering and the built environment) into three (business, health, creativity and AI).
The university spokesperson added: “The recent university review of our operating model concluded with no need for compulsory redundancies, while reducing headcount to achieve essential savings.
“Moving from five schools to three will allow us to focus on specific areas of importance such as business, health, creativity and AI while reducing silos and allowing colleagues to work more closely across disciplines.
“We have agreed with trade union colleagues that the forthcoming changes to our school structure will result in no further reduction in headcount.”
A spokesperson for Queen Margaret University commented: “At Queen Margaret University, we have a long history of collaborating with other institutions to fulfil our institutional purpose.
“In that spirit, we are open to deeper collaborative working with institutions across the Lothians and beyond to create efficiencies while fully protecting our institutional autonomy.
“As part of this, we are at the early stages of work with SRUC and Edinburgh Napier University on a programme of work to explore the mechanisms by which such deeper collaboration might be achieved, building on existing close collaboration.
“We can say categorically that this does not involve any plans for a merger. Staff have been informed that we are embarking on this exploratory work and we will, of course be involving them in the process as appropriate. There is no target associated with this work.”
