The Russell Group is a self-selected association of twenty-four public research universities in the United Kingdom. The group is headquartered in Cambridge and was established in 1994 to represent its members' interests, principally to government and Parliament. It was incorporated in 2007. Its members are often perceived as being the UK's best universities, which has been widely disputed.

As of 2017,^[update] Russell Group members receive over three-quarters of all university research grant and contract income in the United Kingdom. Russell Group members award 60% of all doctorates gained in the United Kingdom. In the 2021 Research Excellence Framework, Russell Group universities accounted for 65% of all world-leading (4*) research conducted in the UK, and 91% of the Russell Group's research was judged to be world-leading (4*) or internationally excellent (3*). In the 2023 Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework (TEF), of the 20 English Russell Group universities which were assessed, 7 hold gold awards (35%) and 13 silver (65%). This compares to proportions across 128 higher education institutions of which 29% hold gold, 62% silver, and 9% bronze. Their graduates hold 61% of all UK jobs that require a university degree, despite being only 17% of all higher education graduates.

The Russell Group is named after the location of the first informal meetings of the Group, which took place at the Hotel Russell in Russell Square, London.

The Russell Group of universities was formed in 1994 by 17 British research universities – Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Imperial College London, Leeds, Liverpool, London School of Economics, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Oxford, Sheffield, Southampton, University College London and Warwick, who originally met at Hotel Russell shortly before meetings of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals (now Universities UK) in nearby Tavistock Square, close to the University of London buildings and, particularly, Senate House. With the exception of Warwick (established in the 1960s), the founder members of the group were all universities or university colleges prior to World War I, including most of Britain's ancient universities and "redbrick universities". In 1998, Cardiff University and King's College London joined the group.

In March 2001, the Russell Group decided against selecting a preferred option for the future funding of higher education, stating that endowments, a graduate contribution, increased public funding and top-up fees should all remain options. In December 2005, it was announced that the Russell Group would be appointing its first full-time director-general as a result of a planned expansion of its operations, including commissioning and conducting its own policy research. In November 2006, Queen's University Belfast was admitted as the twentieth member of the group. In the same month Wendy Piatt, the then deputy director in the Prime Minister's strategy unit, was announced as the group's new Director General and chief executive.

In March 2012, it was announced that four universities – Durham, Exeter, Queen Mary University of London; and York – would become members of the Russell Group in August of the same year. All of the new members had previously been members of the 1994 Group of British universities.

In January 2013, it was announced that the Russell Group would establish an academic board to advise the English exams watchdog Ofqual on the content of A-Levels. In 2019, the group launched the website "Informed Choices" to advise school children on which A-level subject choices were useful for various degree courses, replacing an earlier teachers' guide of the same name from 2011 that had identified a list of "facilitating subjects'.

The Russell Group states that "its aim is to help ensure that our universities have the optimum conditions in which to flourish and continue to make social, economic and cultural impacts through their world-leading research and teaching".