Russell Group

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Russell Group
Image:RG Logo.png
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 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.

1 Introduction
2 Research funding
3 The members
4 See also
5 External links

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Introduction

The group is often wrongly presented in the media as a kind of British Ivy League. In fact, there is no obvious US parallel to the Russell Group. Unlike the Russell Group of universities, most of America's most well-known universities are privately funded; as a result, these institutions do not have the same interest in forming a lobby group as UK universities, which are all state-funded, with the exception of the University of Buckingham.

The Russell 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. Its purpose is to lead the UK's research effort; to maximise income; to attract the best staff and students; to reduce government interference; and to exploit the universities' collaborative advantage.

Although not directly related to its purpose, the Russell Group is often taken in studies to be representative of prestigious universities. However, the Russell Group is not a comprehensive list of prestigious universities.

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' Student 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.

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 Michael Carr, Registrar, The University of Liverpool. Professor Malcolm Grant, the President and Provost of University College London is chair-elect of the Russell Group.

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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 at 19th, with non-Russell Group institutions Leicester at 18th and Queen Mary at 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 at 37th with less than half the research income of Cardiff, and the only Russell Group member not to make the top 20. However the 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, with three University of London institutions - UCL, LSE and Imperial College - 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 Russell 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).

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