Challenges facing world-class universities

Being home to many world-class higher education institutions greatly benefits the UK. Through generating new knowledge, training a skilled workforce, and sharing innovation with industry, our leading universities are key to the UK’s competitiveness and have a central role to play in an economic recovery.

The Russell Group's new independently-researched report, Staying on top: The challenge of sustaining world-class higher education in the UK, outlines the dangers of underinvestment in Britain’s leading research-intensive universities and the wider implications for the health of the UK economy.

Staying on Top: The challenge of sustaining world-class higher education in the UK

This presentation on the challenges facing Russell Group universities was given in 2009 by the group's Director General, Dr Wendy Piatt, to a higher education conference in Scotland.

Challenges facing Russell Group universities

Policies on admissions, teaching and research, degree quality

The Russell Group policies covering a range of policy areas relating to higher education, including:

• Admissions and widening participation
• The balance between teaching and research
• Degree classification and quality
• Student experience and engagement

was set out in its evidence to the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee for its inquiry into 'Students and Universities'.

Russell Group submission to IUSS committee