First UK Russell Group branch campus announced in Egypt

• At the beginning of the year, University of Exeter revealed their plan to open a branch campus at Cairo, Egypt and is the first for a Russell Group university to set foot in Africa.  This Memorandum of Understanding signed with the Ain Shams University (ASU) will provide British undergraduate and postgraduate degrees from the university to boost accessibility to education and increase international cooperation. 

• Egypt’s Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Mohamed Ayman Ashour said that it is a pioneering project that only proves the huge potential of international cooperation in the higher education sphere. He was at pains to explain that it was more than just an academic achievement, but a ‘flagship declaration of intent’ where it is declared that ‘research can and will address global issues’.

• ASU is one of the largest public universities in Egypt and now has 159,700 students in total among which 12,000 are international students. The new campus will offer programs that will cover two degrees and additional two-semester courses that would allow students to enter the business world. However, it seems to enhance research programs and student-teacher exchange and other cooperative programs to enhance the existing cooperation between the two universities. 

• Lisa Roberts of the University of Exeter, the post of the Vice Chancellor, for instance, showed interest in the idea because it can help the university ‘address the complex problems of the world’ and widen the access to the HE. In December 2024, the cooperation became more official, and the parties signed the Memorandum of Understanding at ASU on January 19, 2025, which could be considered the major advancement of the UK-Egypt educational relations.