Russell Group

Russell Group
Data
Established	1994
Members	19
Continent	Europe
Country	United Kingdom
Leaders	Chairman: Michael Sterling, University of Birmingham Executive Director: Michael Carr, University of Liverpool

The Russell Group is a group of large research-led British universities established in 1994 to represent their interests to the UK Government, Parliament and other similar bodies. Often referred to as the British equivalent of the Ivy League, it contains most of the United Kingdom's leading universities and 18 of its 19 members are in the top 20 in terms of research funding, though some top research universities (notably the University of Durham and the University of York) are not members.

Objectives

The Russell Group states that its objectives are to:

lead the UK's research effort;
maximise income for its member institutions;
attract the best staff and students to those institutions;
create the regulatory environment in which it can achieve these objectives by reducing government interference; and
identify ways to co-operate in order to exploit the universities' collaborative advantage.

It achieves these objectives by lobbying the UK Government and Parliament; by commissioning reports, research and opinion polls; and by creating a forum in which the universities can discuss issues of common concern and identify ways to work together.

Leadership

The group is chaired by Professor Michael Sterling, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Birmingham. The Group's Executive Director is Michael Carr, Registrar of the University of Liverpool. Professor Malcolm Grant, the President and Provost of University College London is Chair-elect of the Russell Group.

Name

The Russell Group is so named because the first informal meetings of the Group took place at the Russell Hotel in Russell Square, London, generally shortly before meetings of Universities UK (formerly known as Committee of Vice Chancellors and Principals, or CVCP) in Tavistock Square.

Research funding

In terms of total research funding in 2004/5 research funding allocations from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), the top 15 universities were all Russell Group institutions - the exceptions being the LSE, which is 22nd due to its focus on less lucratic social science research. (Cardiff, Glasgow and Edinburgh are not included in this table, not being English institutions). The Russell Group institutions received 65% of the total HEFCE research funding allocation.

It should be noted that 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 (i.e. science, technology and medicine tend to attract more money).

Policy on 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.

Aldwych Group

In response to the Russell Group's support for tuition fees (and other issues), the students' unions of the member universities formed the Aldwych Group as a parallel organisation to represent the common interests of their students.

Ivy League Comparisons

While not formally established as a British equivalent of the American Ivy League, the Russell Group has obtained this moniker due to the fact that the leading universities in the United Kingdom, with the highest research ratings and income (with one or two exceptions), are members of the Group.

The members

The current membership of the Group is:^*

External links

Information on HERO
Russell Group website
Boris Johnson calls awareness to the unsettling fact that 9 of the Russell Group Universities have fewer than 30 black students

Lists of universities and colleges in the United Kingdom

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