Higher education postcard: the Russell Group

Greetings from Bloomsbury!

If you were a branding expert, you’d have to pay attention to the Russell Group, which has, in its 32 years, become recognised by the UK government, and many overseas governments too, as a byword for excellence in higher education. But what and why is the Russell Group?

We need first to take a step sideways and talk about the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals, or CVCP. This was a voluntary association of the leaders of the UK’s universities, and was founded in 1930, and which became part of today’s Universities UK (and when I can get a postcard of Woburn House I’ll write more about it!). CVCP members met regularly in London, and by the early 1990s it had become the habit of the leaders of the larger and stronger research universities to hold a pre-meet together. And they did so in the Hotel Russell, conveniently just down the road from the CVCP.

By 1994 their conversations had turned to thoughts of formalising their activities. The Observer reported in October (I haven’t been able to track down a copy, so this is hearsay) that a group of ten universities were planning to work together to leave national pay bargaining; increase academic salaries; prevent research cash from going to post-1992 universities; and increase tuition fee levels. Keele’s then vice chancellor, Brian Fender, was quoted in the Staffordshire Sentinel on 13 October 1994:

If such a move were ever to lead to a stratified system of universities, there could be a problem. I think, however, that the Russell Group is simply a small group lobbying for its own interests – and that has always happened.

Other university leaders were not so sanguine. The principal of Robert Gordon University, David Kennedy, used a graduation address to criticise the Russell Group, as reported in The Scotsman of 9 December 1994:

They call themselves the Russell Club. They might have been more appropriately named the Rustler Club. Do they believe in wider access or a flourishing diversity? … This group has been set up because of manifest selfishness and I think it is absolutely despicable behaviour. They are not concerned about higher education or the country, only about themselves. What I suspect is that they are hoping to be able to do is to skew the whole system and break it up into little leagues. They want to make sure they collar virtually all of the money for research for themselves. I will call them rustlers because they want to pinch everyone else’s money.

You don’t get graduation speeches like that very often.

The next day’s Scotsman contained a response from William Fraser, principal of the University of Glasgow:

I am sorry that Dr Kennedy should be so upset at the fact that some university heads are having meetings to which his university has not been invited. Universities vary a great deal. Those with common interests, because of geography or specialisms like medical schools, meet from time to time. The meetings to which Dr Kennedy takes such strong exception reflect a common emphasis on research. This simply demonstrates the admirable diversity to which Dr Kennedy rightly attaches importance.

These exchanges illustrate some key truths about the UK HE sector.

All universities have a lot in common, and share some core values. Equally, universities diverge tremendously in their relative emphases on teaching and research; in their locales and stances towards the world; in the depth of their pockets and the capacity of the wine cellars; and in their subject mixes. And government policy will impact differently on different types of universities. The collectivist value within UK HE which is represented by Universities UK also tends towards collectivist approaches by subsets of universities.

The Russell Group itself defines its mission as follows: through collaboration and advocacy, the Russell Group works to advance and champion the positive economic, societal and cultural impacts of UK research-intensive universities. It was incorporated in 2007, and all of the vice chancellors and principals of member universities are directors. It lobbies government, it produces research, and by these means it markets its member universities. Very effectively.

The Russell Group may have been the first lobby group, but it wasn’t the only one. There was the 1994 Group, Million+, the Coalition of Modern Universities, University Alliance, and the Cathedrals Group. There are subject specialist groups like Conservatoires UK – the only mission group which if you misspell it, becomes a building trade body. And I’m sure that I’ve forgotten one or two mission groups here. Each exists – or existed, in the case of the 1994 Group – to enable its members to better understand the policy environment and to lobby government on their behalf.

So who is in the Russell Group? At first, there were seventeen members: Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Imperial, Leeds, Liverpool, LSE, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Oxford, Sheffield, Southampton, UCL and Warwick. In 1998 Cardiff and King’s College London joined the group; in 2006 Queen’s University Belfast joined; and in 2012 Durham, Exeter, Queen Mary and York were admitted to the fold.

The Russell Group has been very successful in creating a brand as the UK’s leading universities. There’s been plenty of criticism within the sector that the data about university performance does not bear out the claim that the Russell Group represents the elite – see for example, this piece by Vicki Boliver at Durham.

But this hasn’t stopped government in treating the Russell Group slightly differently. For example, in 2013 when the government wanted oversight of its review of A levels, it was the Russell Group which provided the academic advisory board.

And there’s no doubt that its members are historically strong, research intensive. They’re not the only historically strong, research intensive universities in the UK, but they are a big chunk of them. And Brian Fender’s view – that groups of universities have always lobbied for their own interests – is not wrong.

So that’s what the Russell Group is, and what it does. As and when I get postcards which relate to the other mission groups, I’ll feature them as well!

Here’s a jigsaw of a postcard of the Hotel Russell, which I hope you enjoy. The Hotel Russell was built in 1898 on Russell Square, London. It was designed to echo the Château de Madrid in Paris, which was built in the early 1500s but was demolished by 1790. The architect – Charles Fitzroy Doll – also designed the Titanic’s interior, and the dining room on the ship was said to be almost identical to that in the Hotel Russell. The Russell part of the name comes from the landowners, the Earls Russell. Which fact gives me an excuse to share one of my all-time favourite wall plaques, on the side of the Brunei Gallery, SOAS:

The card itself was sent from London, but the date on the postmark is unclear. It’s an Edward VII stamp, and the postcard is split on the back to allow for a message, so we can date it as between 1902 and 1910.

The card was sent to an address in Barningham, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk:

I shall be leaving here on Saturday morning for Barningham and expecting Aunt B up tomorrow. We ought to arrive during the afternoon. Trust that it will be a fine day. Love from Jen.