Which are the Best Universities in Great Britain?

If you want to see the list of the Russell Group of universities just scroll down the page.

Back in the 'good old days' everyone knew that Oxford and Cambridge were the best universities in the UK and if you were very bright (or daddy was very rich) then you went to one of these two universities. After Oxford and Cambridge came the 'best of the rest' - places where students often considered themselves to be 'Oxbridge rejects'- places like Edinburgh, Bristol, London, and possibly a few more. After these came the old universities in major towns and cities followed by the newer universities. If you couldn't get in to one of these universities you applied to one of the many polytechnics around the country.

No More Polytechnics

In 1992 the UK decided to put an end to polytechnics by calling them universities, one of the aims was to put an end to elitism and have a more 'democratic' system. But a rose by any other name etc...

But human nature being what it is people want to know which is the best, and how to go there if at all possible. One of the reasons being of course that your job prospects are greatly enhanced if you can say you went to Oxford University than if you went to Xtown Polytechnic. Every country in the world has its prestigious educational establishments for the intellectual or financially or politically well endowed elite and its ordinary establishments for everybody else. Even in places like the Soviet Union there were prestigious institutes and universities for the children of the great and the good. Absolute egalitarianism and equality of opportunity is just a dream I'm afraid.

The upshot was that in 1994 a group of universities formed themselves into the ' Russell Group of Universities' (compared by some to the Ivy League in the USA) to distinguish themselves from the rest, or as they put it :

with the aim of :

• maximising income for member institutions;
• leading the research effort in the UK;
• creating the regulatory environment needed to achieve these objectives by reducing government interference;
• attracting the best staff and students;
• identifying ways to co-operate to make best use of the universities' collaborative advantage.

They took the name the Russell Group from the Russell hotel in which the first meeting took place in Russell Square in London.

In the National Student Survey in the UK, Russell Group Universities get average to strong ratings but there are other universities that get better ratings. There are also universities not in the Group with higher levels of employment for graduates than Russell Group Universities.

The Russell Group Universities are, however, perceived as being among the best with regard to academic achievement, so get more applications from future undergraduates.

As a reaction to the Russell Group, 19 other research universities created the '1994 Group'. One criticism of the Russell Group of universitiies is that they place higher priority on research ratings and their teaching quality has suffered.

The Twenty Russell Group Universities are (in alphabetical order):-

University of Birmingham
University of Bristol
University of Cambridge
Cardiff University
University of Edinburgh
University of Glasgow
Imperial College London
King's College London, University of London
University College London, University of London
University of Leeds
University of Liverpool
London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London
University of Manchester
Newcastle University
University of Nottingham
Queen's University Belfast
University of Oxford
University of Sheffield
University of Southampton
University of Warwick

The 19 Universities in the 1994 Group are : -

University of Bath
Birkbeck, University of London
Durham University
University of East Anglia
University of Essex
University of Exeter
Goldsmiths, University of London
Royal Holloway, University of London
Lancaster University
University of Leicester
Loughborough University
Queen Mary, University of London
University of Reading
University of St Andrews
School of Oriental and African Studies
University of Surrey
University of Sussex
University of York