The president of University College Dublin is set to unveil a radical reform plan for the college, which is expected to reduce significantly the number of academic departments.
Dr Hugh Brady will bring his plans to a special meeting of the governing authority next Tuesday.
It is widely believed that he will move to overhaul the structures of the college, which has 11 faculties and more than 90 departments. Many of these could be merged into new schools in the various disciplines.
Already, staff working in various modern language departments have been told that they could in future be working in a new school of languages with one budget, one head and one administrative structure.
Opposition to the proposed changes is growing at UCD among both academic and non-academic staff.
Trade unions representing staff at the college and the UCD Students Union plan to protest outside the Radisson Hotel meeting on Tuesday.
Last night, a senior UCD source said next week's meeting would focus on the overall shape of reform at the college and will not consider any details. He said the president had consulted widely with staff, pointing out that more than 100 submissions had been received in an e-mail forum.
This view is rejected by members of IFUT, MSF and SIPTU who have deplored what they see as the lack of consultation. The situation at UCD broadly mirrors that at Trinity College Dublin and University College Cork where reform plans prompted a storm of protest from staff.
Dr Brady has also been under pressure from some in the college to change its name and to "rebrand" the university and give it a stronger identity. Suggested names include Newman University. This issue however has been put to one side until the reform process is under way.
Dr Brady will come to next Tuesday's meeting armed with a report from an academic think-tank, which found that UCD was under-performing across several areas.
The report was highly critical of UCD's "lacklustre" performance in the key area of scientific research.
The findings from the Washington Advisory Group are much resented among some academic staff. One senior academic said yesterday: "The truth is that UCD is actually over-performing when you consider the extent to which we are under-funded and under-supported".
In outlining a reform plan, Dr Brady is responding to the demand by a recent OECD report on third-level education for radical internal reform of Irish universities.
The OECD report argued that Irish colleges should concentrate resources in areas of expertise instead of "being all things to all men". It wants much closer collaboration between the seven Irish universities and the 14 institutes of technology.
There is considerable unease among academic staff in UCD that arts and humanities could be sidelined as the college seeks to forge a stronger reputation in the science and research arena.
A former deputy head of medicine at Harvard, Dr Brady took up office last January.
In an interview with The Irish Times he said he was not interested in courting popularity and was focused on making UCD one of the top colleges in the European Union.
