Red brick university in the context of "Formal (university)"

The University of Liverpool (abbreviated UOL) is a public research university in Liverpool, England. Founded in 1881 as University College Liverpool and affiliated with Victoria University in 1884, it received a royal charter from King Edward VII in 1903, thereby attaining the authority to award degrees independently. The university holds and operates assets on the National Heritage List, such as the Liverpool Royal Infirmary (origins in 1749), the Ness Botanic Gardens, and the Victoria Gallery & Museum.

Organised into three faculties divided by 35 schools and departments, the university offers more than 230 first degree courses across 103 subjects. It is a founding member of the Russell Group, and the research intensive association of universities in Northern England, the N8 Group. The phrase "redbrick university" was inspired by the Victoria Building; thus, the university claims to be the original redbrick university, using the phrase in its brand tag line.

The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a public research university in Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingham (founded in 1825 as the Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery), and Mason Science College (established in 1875 by Sir Josiah Mason), making it the first English civic or 'red brick' university to receive its own royal charter, and the first English unitary university. It is a founding member of both the Russell Group of British research universities and the international network of research universities, Universitas 21.

The student population includes 24,585 undergraduate and 12,250 postgraduate students (2023/24), which is the 11th largest in the UK (out of 169). The annual income of the university for 2023–24 was £926 million of which £205.2 million was from research grants and contracts, with an expenditure of £726.5 million. In the 2021 Research Excellence Framework, the University of Birmingham ranked equal 13th out of 129 institutions on grade point average, up from equal 31st in the previous REF in 2014.

In the United Kingdom, a post-1992 university, synonymous with new university or modern university, is a former polytechnic or central institution that was given university status through the Further and Higher Education Act 1992, or an institution that has been granted university status since 1992 without receiving a royal charter. This is used in contrast to "pre-1992" universities.

The term "new universities" was historically used to refer to universities that were at the time new. In the mid-19th century, it was used in England to distinguish the recently established universities of Durham and London from the "old universities" of Oxford and Cambridge. In the early 20th century, the term was applied to the civic universities that had recently gained university status, such as Bristol and others (now known as red brick universities). The term was later used to refer to universities gaining their status in the 1960s, such as the former colleges of advanced technology, which were converted to universities following the 1963 Robbins Report on higher education, and the plate glass universities, which were already in the process of being established at the time of the report.

The University of Manchester is a public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester City Centre on Oxford Road. The university is considered a red brick university, a product of the civic university movement of the late 19th century. The current University of Manchester was formed in 2004 following the merger of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) and the Victoria University of Manchester. This followed a century of the two institutions working closely with one another.

UMIST had its origins in the Manchester Mechanics' Institution, which was founded in 1824. The present University of Manchester considers this date, which is also the date of foundation of the ancestor of the Royal School of Medicine and Surgery, one of the predecessor institutions of the Victoria University of Manchester, as its official foundation year. The founders of the Mechanics' Institution believed that all professions, to some extent, depended on science. As such, the institute taught working individuals branches of science relevant to their existing occupations, believing its practical application would encourage innovation and advancements within those fields. The Victoria University of Manchester was founded in 1851, as Owens College. Academic research undertaken by the university was published via the Manchester University Press from 1904.

The University of Reading is a public research university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as the University Extension College, Reading, an extension college of Christ Church, Oxford, and became University College, Reading in 1902. The institution became a university with the power to grant its own degrees in 1926 by royal charter from King George V, and was the only university to receive such a charter between the two world wars. The university is usually categorised as a red brick university, reflecting its original foundation in the 19th century.

Reading has four major campuses. In the United Kingdom, the campuses on London Road and Whiteknights are based in the town of Reading itself, and Greenlands is based on the banks of the River Thames in Buckinghamshire. It also has a campus in Iskandar Puteri, Malaysia. The university has been arranged into 16 academic schools since 2016. The annual income of the institution for 2024–25 was £347.8 million of which £33.9 million was from research grants and contracts, with an expenditure of £366.1 million.

The Victoria Building of the University of Liverpool, is on the corner of Brownlow Hill and Ashton Street, Liverpool, Merseyside, England (grid reference SJ358903). It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building. It was designed by Alfred Waterhouse and completed in 1892. It was the first purpose-built building for what was to become the University of Liverpool, with accommodation for administration, teaching, common rooms and a library. The building was the inspiration for the term "red brick university" which was coined by Professor Edgar Allison Peers. In 2008 it was converted into the Victoria Gallery & Museum.