Brand Russell Group has become a byword for overall excellence in UK higher education when the truth is that it is a self-selecting university cartel whose members care more about research than they do about teaching. With research such an important component of league tables, this sustains their overall top-quartile ranking, which in turn misleads parents, teachers, students and employers into believing that they offer the highest quality education.

If student satisfaction is the best proxy we’ve got for quality of education, then the vast majority of Russell Group members are doing a pretty poor job. With the honourable exceptions of York, Sheffield and Warwick, the rest come way down the student satisfaction rankings, with nine of them ranking lower than 100 out of a universe of 130. Yet they enjoy a reverential aura which goes unchallenged. Until now.

The rest of the sector has in large part, let them get away with it. By playing the same game, pretending to be research-intensive when their income is diddly squat. Being obsessed with rankings when they should be obsessed with working out how best to serve their communities. By not asserting with pride that for them at least, high quality teaching and career preparation takes precedence over academic research.

You don’t beat strong opponents by fighting on their ground. You work out what you do better than them, then focus on delivering that benefit. It's time to take the gloves off, play to your strengths, and stop Russell Group members getting away with murder. Here are seven thoughts on how best to compete, starting with some bare-knuckle marketing designed to make prospective students sit up and take notice.

1. Publish your university’s student satisfaction ranking on your home page

University	Student Satisfaction Rating
Your university	8th?
Russell Group average	89
Local Russell Group member	104th?
Local high-ranking non-RG member	59th?

Source: Complete University Guide 2022

2. Publish each and every programme’s student satisfaction ranking

Comparing it with the Russell Group average for similar programmes, whichever of their members is in your UCAS competitive set and your highest-ranking non-RG member.

3. Make teaching quality and career preparation your dominant message

Students and their parents want the best return on their enormous student loan commitment. For them, their university education is a means to an end, not an end in itself. For first-in-family students, their degree really should be transformational, so focus on the pride and status you give to the quality of your teaching and the initiatives you take to prepare students for successful careers. In so doing, you will put clear blue water between your university and others that care more about academic research.

4. Innovate programmes with great career prospects

This should be the single most important guiding principle that drives your portfolio development. It’s also a key weakness of Russell Group members, who look down on programmes that are obviously vocational. New programmes which fit this criterion might comprise growing niche business subjects, such as logistics, or reflect Britain’s growth industries including creative gaming, sustainable energy, film and TV production, e-commerce and fintech.

5. Delete programmes with weak career prospects

No university likes to close programmes, but since 2012 there has been an inexorable move away from academic subjects offering weak career prospects. These markets are declining and you shouldn’t hang on in the vain hope that you’ll increase share. Identify those whose eventual demise is inevitable, grasp the nettle and cull them now. You’ll have a lower cost base, a better graduate prospects score and money to invest in programmes that offer a decent ROI. For you and for your students.

6. Encourage your students to consider entrepreneurship

The UK has a very strong history of new business start-ups. 726,000 in 2020 alone. The vast majority of our private sector workforce are employed in small and medium-sized businesses. Most of our most successful entrepreneurs never went to university, because when they were young, universities were mostly for the academic not the vocational. Now it’s different. Many of our most progressive universities are running programmes which bring interested students together to develop ideas and projects, even setting up businesses before they complete their degree. Learn from them.

7. If you’re small, make a virtue of it

Students like to feel a sense of belonging. The evidence from the NSS is that students are much happier in smaller universities or in the colleges and smaller campuses of larger universities. In large Russell Group universities, they get lost. If your university is small relative to your higher-ranking competitors, shout about it and be explicit about the happiness it brings. And use your students to tell the world how much they enjoy life in a human-size university.

The Times reports that despite lockdowns imposed during the health emergency, Russell Group universities have experienced the biggest increase in student numbers for more than ten years. Hardly surprising, when 45% of A levels were graded A*/A last year, resulting in students choosing to ‘upgrade’ to a ‘better’ ie higher ranked university.

The 110 universities that are not members are suffering as a result and nothing will change unless a good few take on board some or all of the suggestions outlined above. I know some will regard them as brutal or radical, but believe me, if you don’t come out and fight now, your very future could be in jeopardy.

How to persuade students to choose your university over higher-ranked, even Russell Group competitors