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A History Lesson

Universities in the UK have a long history, with Oxford established over 850 years ago and other prestigious institutions like Cambridge, St. Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Edinburgh founded soon after. In the 19th century, more universities were established including the University of London and regional "red brick" universities. Following the Robbins Report recommendation for expansion, new "plate glass" universities were built on campuses outside cities in the mid-20th century. The final major change was in 1992 when polytechnics and colleges were granted university status, increasing the number of universities across the UK.

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Verica Krstic
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36 views

A History Lesson

Universities in the UK have a long history, with Oxford established over 850 years ago and other prestigious institutions like Cambridge, St. Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Edinburgh founded soon after. In the 19th century, more universities were established including the University of London and regional "red brick" universities. Following the Robbins Report recommendation for expansion, new "plate glass" universities were built on campuses outside cities in the mid-20th century. The final major change was in 1992 when polytechnics and colleges were granted university status, increasing the number of universities across the UK.

Uploaded by

Verica Krstic
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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A History Lesson

Universities in the UK have an incredible long history. Although some institutions on continental
Europe are older, would you believe that Oxford University, the UK's oldest high education
institution, has been going for about 850 years? Cambridge was founded soon after, and in
Scotland St. Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh have all been teaching students for
half a millennia each. Together these institutions form the old guard of the UK's university
system.
There was then a lull in university foundation until the 19​th​ century when the University of
London was created, along with what are known in the UK as the ‘red brick' universities. These
are city-based institutions mostly in old industrial cities. Examples are the Universities of
Sheffield and Birmingham.
In the mid- 20​th​ century, a government report entitled the Robbins Report recommended that
more universities should be built. These were called ‘new universities' at the time, and are now
sometimes referred to as ‘plate glass' universities. They were often on campuses outside towns
and cities, with plenty of room for expansion. Examples of this group are the University of
Warwick and the University of East Anglia.
The final radical shake-up of Higher Education was in 1992 when a whole new group of
institutions were given the name ‘university'. These post-1992 universities are former
polytechnics or colleges of higher education. Many of the UK's larger towns and cities now have
more than one university, an older institution and the former polytechnic, now also referred to as
a university. An example would be in Oxford, where the old university is still ‘Oxford
University' and the post-1992 institution is ‘Oxford Brookes University' having formerly been
known as ‘Oxford Polytechnic'. Other post-1992 universities used to be known as ‘HE colleges'
and are now ‘university colleges'.
Some colleges offer both higher and further education courses. These are not considered
‘universities' and usually they offer more vocational type courses rather than the traditional
academic subjects.
What do these differences mean for the jobseeker?
Teaching versus research
If you are applying for an academic position at one of these universities, you need to know
whether they will be more interested in your teaching or research qualifications. This really does
depend on the job for which you are applying, but as a general rule post-1992 universities focus
more on teaching while older universities are more interested in your research history.
You may also hear the term ‘Russell Group' being used. This is a group of twenty universities
with the best research reputation in the country and who receive a large proportion of the
government's research funding. The Russell Group is made up of: Birmingham, Bristol,
Cambridge, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Imperial College, London, King's College London,
University College, London, Leeds, Liverpool, LSE, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham,
Queen's University, Belfast, Oxford, Sheffield, Southampton and Warwick. Getting a job or
becoming a student at one of these institutions is very competitive indeed.
The term ‘golden triangle' refers to the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and those in London.
These institutions are also strongly research-focussed.
Quality of institution
Many people argue that, as a rule, the older the university, the better its standards. They believe
this is especially true for the post-1992 universities which often require considerably lower
grades for its students. However, some of the former polytechnics are working very hard to boost
their international academic reputation by attracting the brightest scholars from around the
world. They are also trying to encourage their staff to develop strong research profiles in order to
compete with the older institutions. Another example to buck this trend is the University of
Warwick, merely 40 years old but competing with much older institutions right at the top of most
league tables.
League tables are useful for applicants and students in finding out the calibre of the institution to
which they are applying. There are several different sorts of league table published each year, for
example the Good University Guide:
http://www.thegooduniversityguide.org.uk/single.htm?ipg=6605
It measures all sorts of criteria such as student satisfaction, research assessment, entry criteria,
student-staff ratio, academic services spend, facilities spend, percentage of students getting a
good honours degree, career prospects of students and completion rate. Their website also allows
you to look at profiles of the institutions and the cities they are based in, which can be a useful
addition to studying the university's own website. Be careful though; an institution's reputation
can vary dramatically depending on which department you are interested in: a place strong in
history might not attract the best physicists for example.
Another obvious criterion for judging UK university departments is their score in the Research
Assessment Exercise of 2001. However, the results of a new exercise are currently being
calculated and will be released imminently. You can view the 2001 results here:
http://www.hero.ac.uk/rae/rae_dynamic.cfm?myURL=http://195.194.167.103/Results/byinst.asp
Needless to say the results of this exercise have been very controversial and many academics do
not believe them to be an accurate reflection of their department's calibre. As with all measures
of quality, use your own judgement when employing them.

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