The Russell Group of universities is a self-selected group of large research-led British universities; 18 of its 19 members are in the top 20 in terms of research funding. It contains many of Britain's top universities.
Introduction
The group is often wrongly presented in the media, as a kind of British Ivy League, representing the interests of Britain's prestigious universities, although the group does not include some top British universities. However, unlike the Ivy League, all of the Russell Group universities are state-funded.
The group's purpose is to represent the views of their institutions (especially in lobbying government and parliament) and to commission reports to support their case. Their concerns are to lead the UK's research effort; to maximise income; to attract the best staff and students; to reduce government interference; and to exploit their collaborative advantage.
Although not directly related to its purpose, the Russell Group is often taken in studies to be representative of prestigious universities. However, like the Ivy League, the Russell Group is not a comprehensive list of prestigious universities. It may surprise many non-Americans to know that the Ivy League does not include MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, Caltech, Duke, University of Chicago, Georgetown, NYU, UCLA or even the university that receives the most federal research grants in the US, Johns Hopkins. By comparison, the Russell Group is much more representative of prestigious British universities. However, many (including journalists) fail to realise that the Russell Group does not include smaller prestigious institutions such as the Universities of York and Durham.
The 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 enough, and argued for the right to charge much higher so-called top-up fees. In response to this and other issues, the Student Unions of the Russell Group universities have formed the Aldwych Group.
More recently a sub group of 'super-elite' universities, with strong international standing, has emerged within the Russell constellation: the 'G5', comprising LSE, Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial and UCL. These, according to press reports, have begun to make separate representations to government in search of additional funding, and for instance the vice-chancellors of these institutions sent a celebrated letter to the Times, in late 2003, on the subject of university finance.
The Russell group is so named because meetings 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. The group is chaired by Professor Michael Sterling, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Birmingham. The Group's Executive Director is Mr Michael Carr, Registrar, The University of Liverpool.
Research funding
The Russell Group identifies itself as being 'an association of 19 major research-intensive universities', and this is seen to be true in terms of the research funding the member institutes receive.
In terms of total research funding in 1998/9, the top 17 were Russell Group institutions. Cardiff comes in 19th, with non-Russell Group institutions Leicester in 18th and Queen Mary in 20th. Overall, the Russell Group had over 60% of the total research income of HE institutions in the UK. The LSE - which, though very elite, is very much out of place in the Russell Group in terms of its size - is down in 37th with less than half the research income of Cardiff, and the only Russell Group member not to make the top 20. However LSE does no science, technology and medicine, and in its area of social science receives the most research income of any social science institution. In the government ratings it is usually ranked in the top two or three for quality. However the gap between the largest and smallest institutions in the Russell Group is huge. The so-called 'Golden Triangle' of institutions (Oxford, Cambridge, UCL, and Imperial College - the London institutions of UCL and Imperial forming a single point on the triangle) have 40% of the research income of the Russell Group, while Cardiff had less than a quarter of the income of fourth-placed Cambridge.
While funding levels have changed since this study, the general trend has been to concentrate research funding. In the tables for the 2004/5 research funding allocations from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), the top 15 universities are again all Russell Group institutions - the exception again being the LSE, which is 22nd (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, with the 'Golden Triangle' again accounting for over 40% of the Russel Group total. In Wales, Cardiff receives 49% of the total research grant, while in Scotland Glasgow and Edinburgh together receive just over 50% of the total. Due to different baseline funding levels, these are not directly comparable to the figures for England but if a comparison is made on this basis, then the three non-English institutions all fall within the range covered by
the top 15 in England. A UK top-twenty composed on this basis would consist of the Russell Group institutions, less the LSE, and the Universities of Durham and York.
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).
The members
See also
External links
