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UCL President and Provost to chair Russell Group

5 December 2005

Professor Malcolm Grant, President and Provost of UCL, is to take over as Chairman of the Russell Group from Professor Michael Sterling, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Birmingham, when Professor Sterling's term of office ends on 30 June 2006.

Professor Malcolm Grant In addition, the group intends to recruit a director-general.

The Russell Group is an association of 19 major research-intensive universities of the UK, formed in 1994 and composed of the vice-chancellors and principals of those universities. There are also a number of active sub-groups.

Professor Grant said: "I am delighted to have been elected to lead the Russell Group into this new and exciting phase of its development. I look forward to working with our new director-general and with my colleague vice-chancellors, and to confirming the Russell Group as a leading organisation in higher education, which carries the confidence of government, of other stakeholders and, of course, of its member institutions."

In recent years the influence and activities of the Russell Group have increased greatly. In 2003, this led to the creation of a more professional structure for the group, with its work being directed by a part-time chairman and an executive-director, with assistance from a whole variety of professional sub-groups. It has now decided that there is a need for a significant step-change in its activities and organisation.

The group wishes specifically to promote and support the contribution of top-level university research to national economic growth and innovation, and also to represent more clearly in an increasingly competitive global environment the value of the very high-quality research-based education provided by its members. The group therefore needs to extend its investment in policy analysis and in representation.

In 2003/2004, Russell Group universities accounted for more than 60 per cent (£1.7 billion) of UK universities' research grant and contract income, approximately 55 per cent of all doctorates awarded in the UK, and more than 30 per cent of all students studying in the UK from outside the EU. In the 2001 national Research Assessment Exercise, 78 per cent of the staff in grade 5* departments and 57 per cent of the staff in grade 5 departments were located within Russell Group universities.

Image: Professor Grant