The challenge of academic writing for Chinese students within ...

The original six civic universities and another two universities have also been recognized as
Redbrick (or Red Brick) universities. The term Redbrick came from Redbrick University
(1943) 10 by ‗Bruce Truscot‘ (the pseudonym of E. Allison Peers, a professor of Hispanic
Studies at the University of Liverpool). His book, delineating many problems of newlychartered
universities, aroused a series of debates and discussions on the idea and the nature
of a university, and the relations between the redbrick universities and Oxbridge. On the one
hand he saw research and teaching as ‗one single aim‘ of a university, and on the other hand
Peers advocated the importance of research to a university, in his own words ‗the primary
aim of the university must be the search for knowledge – re-search‘ (Truscott, 1943, p.48).
The Redbrick University group later extended to include a number of other universities which
originated in the 19 th and early 20 th centuries, and gained university status before 1963.
Comprehensive as they are now, the Red Brick Universities offer a broad range of subjects in
arts and science. Today the Red Brick Universities are associated with the Russell Group.
The Russell Group universities are research-intensive in arts and science and boast excellence
in teaching, learning and research. Among the top ten universities which were reported as
having the largest number of students from China and Hong Kong in 2005/6, six of them are
the members of the Russell Group; and universities of Warwick and Manchester ranked first
and second, respectively (THE, 2008). Many of the Red Brick Universities excel in a wide
range of research fields. For instance, the universities of Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield,
Birmingham, and Nottingham rated A*5 on the Sunday Times University League Table
(2008) based on research quality in such subjects as Accounting and Finance, Sociology,
Aeronautical and Manufacturing Engineering, Biological Science, Politics, Chemical
Engineering, and Theology and Religious Studies.
The 1960s saw the expansion of institutions of higher education in the UK. In the wake of
Robbins Report of 1963 on higher education, a number of universities, known as
‗Shakespearean universities‘, were established, including the universities of York, Lancaster,
Warwick, Sussex, Essex, Kent, and East Anglia; some colleges of advanced technology, such
as Aston, Bath, Loughborough and Salford received university status. Although public debate
10 Red Brick University was published in 1943, and Redbrick and these Vital Days in 1945; in 1951 a combined
edition of Red Brick University was published. Red Brick was used for the 1943 title, Redbrick for the 1945
sequel and Red Brick for the 1951 edition, Cf. UoL (2007), Biographies - Edgar Allison Peers, Special
Collections & Archives, University of Liverpool; H. Silver (1999) The Universities‘ Speaking Conscience:
‗Bruce Truscot‘ and Redbrick University. History of Education, 28(2), p.173
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