Meet 15 Russell Group universities at free open days in Shanghai (Oct 24, Langham Hotel) and Beijing (Oct 25, CP Center). Talk to academics, admissions and alumni; walk-ins welcome.
Tags:Rankings tell you one thing, course pages tell you another, and the advice you get online is often too generic to apply to your own situation.
After a while, the research stops feeling like progress.
The Russell Group Universities Open Day is designed to break that loop.
On October 24, 15 Russell Group universities will gather in the ballroom of the Langham Hotel, Shanghai. On October 25, they move to CP Center Ballroom, Beijing.
Both events are completely free to attend, and registration is now open.
This is more than a fair—it is a chance to speak directly with the academics who teach on the courses you are considering, meet alumni who have already made the journey, and test your own interests against real academic and career paths.
Here is what to expect...
Interactive Games & Immersive Experiences
The format of the day is intentionally unlike a traditional exhibition.
The entire event is laid out as a British railway map, with each of the 15 universities positioned as a station according to its city's location in the UK—rather than wandering between anonymous booths, you follow a route.
At each station, you can talk to university representatives, collect stickers, badges, and postcards, and use your phone to tap an NFC point that lights up that university on your personal exploration map.
Piece by piece, the map fills in.
On arrival, you receive a travel journal—a keepsake album designed to hold everything you collect along the way.
By the end of the day, it becomes a record of the universities you explored and the conversations you had, a physical artifact of the trip.
There is also a DIY tote bag station, where the badges gathered from different universities can be arranged and attached to a custom canvas bag.
Each university stall has its own interactive theme—blind boxes, ring toss, memory matching, personality quizzes—designed to introduce that university's culture and its host city in a lighter way.
There are also prize draws and university-prepared gift packs.
And when you need a break, there is a British afternoon tea area. This is not just a rest stop. It is where the most valuable conversations often happen.
Over coffee and English pastries, you can sit down with professors, admissions officers or alumni for a short, informal chat—the kind of exchange that is impossible to have through a website enquiry form.
Bring your questions about course structure, campus life, application planning or career outcomes, and ask them face to face.
The atmosphere is intentionally relaxed. You won't be sitting through hours of presentations. Move at your own pace, follow the map, and let the conversations happen naturally.
The Academic Pavilion
Most students arrive at an open day with a subject in mind. Far fewer arrive knowing which questions that subject actually answers, or where it sits inside a university's research culture.
The Academic Pavilion is built around that gap.
At the center of the event are themed zones built around three keywords, the skill domains that, according to QS's Future Skills Index 2027, will run through almost every industry and job function in the coming decade:
AI
AI is already embedded in business, healthcare, education, and design.
Digital
Digital transformation is reshaping nearly every sector.
Green
Green transition is redefining engineering, finance, urban planning, and manufacturing.
Within these zones, professors, lecturers and researchers from the 15 universities will be speaking about the problems they are currently working on—not in the abstract, but as live research questions.
Once again, these are the kinds of conversations that rankings cannot replicate.
Subject Choices & Future Careers
One of the most common pieces of advice given to prospective students is to "follow your interests." It is also one of the least useful, because most people are never shown how.
The Russell Group Universities Open Day approaches this from the opposite direction.
Instead of asking you to commit to a subject, it invites you to bring a question.
What is something you find genuinely interesting?
What would you like to understand better?
What kind of problem would you want to work on?
Then it connects that question to the academic system that surrounds it.
A passing curiosity about how AI reads human emotion can lead to psychology, cognitive science, robotics or human–computer interaction—and from there into product development, user experience, smart device manufacturing, or clinical applications.
An interest in why people adopt or reject new technology can lead to consumer behavior, marketing, innovation management, or digital culture.
A concern for sustainability can lead into engineering, design, materials science, public policy, or business.
You can also speak with alumni now working in different fields, who can speak concretely about what they studied, how they moved into their careers, and what they wish they had known earlier.
For parents, this is equally valuable. Questions about costs, support services, safety and outcomes can all be raised directly with university representatives, so that the decision is made with full information rather than second-hand summaries.
Sign Up Now!
Head along to an event where 15 universities will be in one room, with their academics, admissions teams, and alumni.
Compare courses side by side, ask the questions that matter to you, and get a feel for institutions that no prospectus can convey.
Attendance is free, and registration is open now. Bring your questions—and a willingness to follow where they lead.
Shanghai
October 24
Langham Hotel, 3rd Floor Xintiandi Ballroom
Admission free
Register now to receive a free gift
Walk-ins are also welcomed
Beijing
October 25
CP Center Ballroom
Admission free
Register now to receive a free gift
Walk-ins are also welcomed
Scan the QR code in the poster below to reserve your place now: