Russell Group

Russell Group

Formation	1994
Type	Association of United Kingdom-based universities
Headquarters	London, United Kingdom
Region served	United Kingdom
Membership	24 University of Birmingham University of Bristol University of Cambridge Cardiff University Durham University University of Edinburgh University of Exeter University of Glasgow Imperial College London King's College London University of Leeds University of Liverpool London School of Economics and Political Science University of Manchester Newcastle University University of Nottingham University of Oxford Queen Mary University of London Queen's University Belfast University of Sheffield University of Southampton University College London University of Warwick University of York
Key people	Wendy Piatt (Director General) David Eastwood (Chairman)
Website	www.russellgroup.ac.uk

The Russell Group is a self-selected association of 24 prestigious British public research universities. The term Russell Group has connotations of academic excellence, selectivity in admissions, and social elitism. Russell Group is headquartered in London and was established in 1994 to represent its members' interests, principally to government and parliament; 19 smaller British research universities formed the 1994 Group in response, which has since dissolved. In 2010, Russell Group members received approximately two-thirds of all university research grant and contract income in the United Kingdom.^[1]

As of May 2004, Russell Group members awarded 56% of all doctorates awarded in the United Kingdom, and over 30% of all students studying in the United Kingdom from outside the EU.^[1] In the 2001 national Research Assessment Exercise, 78% of the staff in Grade 5* departments and 57% of the staff in Grade 5 departments were located in Russell Group universities.^[1]

The Russell Group is so named because the first informal meetings of the Group took place at the Hotel Russell in Russell Square, London, generally shortly before meetings of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals (now Universities UK) in nearby Tavistock Square, close to the University of London buildings.^[2]

History

The Russell Group was formed in 1994 by 17 British research universities – Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Imperial College London, Leeds, Liverpool, London School of Economics, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Oxford, Sheffield, Southampton, University College London and Warwick.^[3] In 1998 Cardiff University and King's College London joined the group.^[4] In March 2001 the Russell Group decided against selecting a preferred option for the future funding of higher education, stating that endowments, a graduate contribution, increased public funding and top-up fees should all remain options.^[5] In December 2005 it was announced that the Russell Group would be appointing its first full-time director-general as a result of a planned expansion of its operations, including commissioning and conducting its own policy research.^[6] In November 2006 Queen's University Belfast was admitted as the twentieth member of the group.^[3] In the same month Wendy Piatt, the then deputy director in the Prime Minister's strategy unit, was announced as the group's new Director General and chief executive.^[3]

In March 2012 it was announced that four universities – Durham, Exeter, Queen Mary University of London; and York – would become members of the Russell Group in August of the same year.^[2] All of the new members had previously been members of the 1994 Group of British universities.^[2]

In January 2013 it was announced that the Russell Group would establish an academic board to advise the British exams watchdog Ofqual on the content of A-Levels.^[7]

Organisation

Objectives

The Russell Group states that its objectives are to:

• lead the research efforts of the United Kingdom;
• maximise the income of its member institutions;
• attract the best staff and students to its member institutions;
• create a regulatory environment in which it can achieve these objectives by reducing government interference; and
• identify ways to co-operate to exploit the universities' collaborative advantage.^[1]

It works towards these objectives by lobbying the UK government and parliament; commissioning reports and research; creating a forum in which its member institutions can discuss issues of common concern; and identify opportunities for them to work together.

Leadership

The Russell Group is led by Wendy Piatt, the Director General and chief executive, and chaired by Sir David Eastwood, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Birmingham. Piatt previously worked as Deputy Director in the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit and as former head of education at the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR).^[8]

Members

The Russell Group currently has twenty four members, of which twenty are from England, two from Scotland, and one from each of Wales and Northern Ireland. Of the English members, five are from Greater London; three from the Yorkshire and the Humber region; two from each of the North East, North West, West Midlands, South West and South East regions; and one from each of the East Midlands and East regions.

The table below gives the members of the group, along with the date in which they received Royal Charters and their Vice-Chancellors.

University[9]	Year of Royal Chartera	Year of joining	Total students	Total income (2012/13, £ millions)[10]	Research income (2012/13, £ millions)[10]	Current vice-chancellorb
University of Birmingham	1900	1994	26,073	493	105	Sir David Eastwood
University of Bristol	1909	1994	18,770	459	120	Sir Eric Thomas
University of Cambridge	1231	1994	18,448	1,438 f	332	Sir Leszek Borysiewicz
Cardiff Universityg	1997	1998	30,930	437	88	Colin Riordan
Durham University	1837	2012	16,355	283	51	Ray Hudson
University of Edinburgh	1583	1994	30,377	738	200	Sir Timothy O'Shea
University of Exeter	1955	2012	17,950	299	54	Sir Steve Smith
University of Glasgow	1451	1994	23,162	469	128	Anton Muscatelli
Imperial College Londonc	1907	1994	13,410	823	330	Alice Gast
King's College Londonc	1829	1998	18,630	586	164	Edward Byrne
University of Leeds	1904	1994	33,585	548	129	Sir Alan Langlands
University of Liverpool	1903	1994	20,655	473	125	Sir Howard Newby
London School of Economics and Political Sciencec	1895	1994	8,810	263	24	Craig Calhoun
University of Manchester	2004 d	1994	39,165	827	200	Dame Nancy Rothwell
Newcastle University	1963	1994	22,874	415	93	Chris Brink
University of Nottingham	1948	1994	34,377	561	112	Sir David Greenaway
University of Oxford	1248	1994	21,535	1,087	437	Andrew Hamilton
Queen Mary University of Londonc	1934 e	2012	14,820	324	81	Simon Gaskell
Queen's University Belfast	1908	2006	24,955	289	62	Patrick Johnston
University of Sheffield	1905	1994	26,960	485	114	Sir Keith Burnett
University of Southampton	1952	1994	23,315	447	102	Don Nutbeam
University College Londonc	1836	1994	23,250	940	335	Michael Arthur
University of Warwick	1965	1994	28,165	460	84	Nigel Thrift
University of York	1963	2012	15,265	295	50	Koen Lamberts

Notes:
^a The year in which a Royal Charter was granted, where known; in some cases the year of foundation may be earlier.
^b Several universities do not use the title vice-chancellor for the administrative head of the university, and some use it in addition to other titles. The Russell Group lists all university heads as vice-chancellors^[11]
c Four of the five London-based members (King's College London, University College London, London School of Economics and Political Science and Queen Mary University of London) are constituent colleges of the federal University of London. The fifth London member, Imperial College London, was a college of the University of London but left in 2007.
^d Date of merger of UMIST and Victoria University of Manchester (Gained their Royal Charters in 1956 and 1880 respectively)
^e Westfield College was established at an earlier date but the merged Queen Mary and Westfield College did not achieve Royal Charter until this date.
^f Includes Cambridge Assessment and Cambridge University Press; excludes colleges.^[12]
g Cardiff University was awarded independent degree-awarding powers by the privy council in 1997 having been part of the University of Wales (founded 1893) until that point.

Research

In 2010/11, 19 of the 20 UK universities with the highest income from research grants and contracts were members of the Russell Group.^[10] In terms of total research funding allocations from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) in 2007/8, the top 15 universities were all Russell Group institutions.^[13] LSE was 21st, due to its focus on less costly social sciences research. Queen's University Belfast, Cardiff, Glasgow and Edinburgh, were not included in this table, as they are not English institutions. The Russell Group institutions received 82% of the total HEFCE research funding allocation.^[13]

The research funding figures depend on factors other than the quality of research, in particular there are variations due to institutional size and subject spread (e.g. science, technology and medicine tend to attract more money).

In 2008, 18 of the 20 members were positioned in the top 20 of Research Fortnight's Research Assessment Exercise 'Power' Table (the other two places being occupied by then non-Russell Group members, Durham University and Queen Mary University of London).^[14]

Rankings

University	ARWU (Global)a[15]	QS (Global)a[16]	THE (Global)a[17]	Complete (National)b[18]	Guardian (National)b[19]	The Times (National)b[20]
University of Birmingham	101–150	62	148	17	17	16
University of Bristol	63	30	74	18	34	15
University of Cambridge	5	3	5	1	1	1
Cardiff University	101–150	123	201–225	23	26	27
Durham University	201–300	90	83	5	8	6
University of Edinburgh	45	17	36	21	18	22
University of Exeter	201–300	168	154	10	12	8
University of Glasgow	101-150	51	94	30	25	25
Imperial College London	22	5	9	6	6	5
King's College London	59	19	40	28	40	27
University of Leeds	101-150	97	139	23	28	29
University of Liverpool	101–150	130	146	31	45	36
London School of Economics	101–150	68	34	3	3	7
University of Manchester	38	33	52	28	33	26
Newcastle University	201–300	129	201-225	20	28	18
University of Nottingham	101-150	75	171	23	22	23
University of Oxford	9	6	3	2	2	2
Queen Mary University of London	201–300	98	107	36	32	37
Queen's University Belfast	301–400	172	251-275	31	46	29
University of Sheffield	101–150	71	121	26	37	18
University of Southampton	101-150	86	132	16	19	20
University College London	20	4	22	9	9	11
University of Warwick	151–200	64	103	10	7	9
University of York	201–300	124	113	14	16	11

Notes:
^a Global ranking; latest available year (2013-2014)
^b National ranking; latest available year (2014)

Aldwych Group

In response to the Russell Group's support for tuition fees (and other issues), in 1994 the students' unions of the member universities formed the Aldwych Group^[21] as a parallel organisation to represent what they perceive to be the common interests of their students. It was established by money saving expert Martin Lewis (who was general secretary of LSE Students' Union in 1994/5) as a watchdog in response to the creation of the Russell Group.^[22][23][24]

The Aldwych Group is so called because it was established at a meeting at the London School of Economics and Political Science, which is located on Aldwych.

Aside from the unions of the Russell Group universities (above), the Aldwych Group is also observed by three other bodies:

• The University of London Union (ULU), due to four of its constituent unions (KCLSU, QMSU, LSESU and UCL Union) being members
• The National Union of Students
• The National Postgraduate Committee, due to the high numbers of graduate students in the Russell Group and their research-intensive focus.

Criticisms

Protectionism

The Institute of Economic Affairs has argued that the Russell Group acts out of protectionist interests. It is claimed that this will "restrict competition, discourage innovation and encourage inefficiency, thereby depriving students of lower prices and/or greater choice".^[25]

Tuition fees

The Russell Group has been prominent in recent years in the debate over the introduction of tuition fees, a measure which it has strongly supported – much to the dismay of the universities' students' unions. Indeed, members of the Group argued that even the fees proposed by the controversial Higher Education Bill would not be sufficient to cover the rising cost of undergraduate teaching, and successfully argued for the right to charge variable fees at much higher rates, so-called top-up fees.

See also

• Association of American Universities
• Group of Eight (Australia)
• Innovative Research Universities (Australia)
• League of European Research Universities
• U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities
• C9 League
• German U15 - Association of 15 research-intensive Universities in German
• Ivy League

References

External links

• Russell Group website
• Aldwych Group website

Russell Group Members Birmingham Bristol Cambridge Cardiff Durham Edinburgh Exeter Glasgow Imperial College London King's College London Leeds Liverpool London School of Economics Manchester Newcastle Nottingham Oxford Queen's Queen Mary Sheffield Southampton University College London Warwick York People Michael Arthur Wendy Piatt

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