About

Our universities share the ambition to change the world for the better. Anchored in their communities, Russell Group universities are global institutions with a vital role to play in cities and towns in every corner of the UK. Partnership is at the heart of our universities’ ethos. Working with schools, colleges, local authorities, the NHS, businesses and charities, our universities use their scale, research excellence and global links to provide solutions for real problems facing families, businesses and public services.

From achieving net zero, to reducing social inequalities and addressing the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and from harnessing the power of AI safely to improving the NHS and finding new cures and treatments; Russell Group universities are working to deliver wide-ranging social, economic, cultural, health and environmental impacts.

• £38 billion generated each year for the UK economy just from the research, innovation and new businesses created at Russell Group universities – this is in addition to wider productivity spillovers, all our teaching and education-related activities, and the fees and spending from international students.
• Over 200,000 staff are employed by our universities, including more than 103,000 academic staff (2022/23).
• 4 in 5 of the UK’s doctors and dentists are trained at our universities.
• Over ¾ of a million students study at Russell Group universities.
• 1,200 Russell Group university spin-out companies supported more than 80,000 jobs across the country in 2021/22.
• Over £1 billion a year in research grants and contracts won by Russell Group universities from international businesses, governments and charities (70% of the total won by all UK universities).

Our aim is to support and enable our member universities to:

• Transform how we understand the world – creating, curating and disseminating knowledge for the betterment of society.
• Advance world-changing research and innovation – generating and translating excellent, globally-recognised research across a breadth of disciplines to enable new discoveries and innovative solutions to address the challenges facing the UK and the world.
• Nurture talent and develop high-level skills – providing high-quality education, training and experience for an increasingly diverse community of students and staff to strengthen the skilled workforce needed in regions and nations across the UK now and for the future.
• Leverage their reach for local and global benefit – using international connections and presence to support investment, jobs and vibrant local ecosystems across the whole of the UK, where the knowledge, skills and partnerships our universities develop involve and benefit their local communities and beyond.

Through collaboration and advocacy, the Russell Group works to advance and champion the positive economic, societal and cultural impacts of UK research-intensive universities. Our priorities are to:

• Improve understanding of how our universities work and the wide-ranging contributions they make to help inform sound political decision-making so UK and devolved governments can leverage the full capabilities of our research-intensive universities, who are ambitious to do even more for the country.
• Provide opportunities and reduce barriers for Russell Group universities to build strong, collaborative and secure relationships with a range of different partners at home and abroad to enhance the quality, impacts and reach of our universities’ research, innovation, education and wider civic activities.
• Secure an environment which supports the overall financial resilience of research-intensive universities to ensure they are on a stable footing to deliver long-term impacts for society and the UK economy.
• Ensure the frameworks which govern or incentivise how universities operate (such as legislation, regulation, guidance and funding conditions) allow them to use their resources efficiently and effectively to deliver for their students, staff and wider communities.

You can find out more about our policy work here.