Back in 2017 we launched the first ever University Top Trumps. The game generated huge excitement in common rooms and coffee shops across the sector, with many calling for more editions to stimulate fun and pleasure in an increasingly challenged HE environment. Our creative team has therefore been working diligently over recent months and, at last, we are able to announce the launch of the first in a new series of the legendary and much loved Uni Top Trumps game.

Excitingly, we are also in the advanced stages of negotiating a new sponsor deal with an extremely reputable national convenience bakery chain. There will be more than meets the pie with this deal in ag-greg-ate we are sure but until it is fully baked we will just have to roll with it.

The new set

Recognising the new realities of the current sector situation this new set offers scores for each university in the following key categories:

• Latest surplus/(deficit)
• Height above sea level
• Instagramability
• Car parking spaces
• Coffee quality 

There is also a set of fun facts on every institution covering a range of subjects which might include:

• Progress against Sustainable Development Goals
• Hectares of playing fields
• REF2021result
• Credit agency rating
• Annual water consumption
• TEF rating
• NSS Student Voice question score
• Total debt levels

Rules of the Game

All the cards are dealt among the players (for extra fun the players may decide to be a vice-chancellor, a PVC or a registrar). There must be at least two players, and at least one card for each player. The starting player (normally the player sitting on the Dean’s left or failing that the individual with the most impressive publication record) selects a category from his or her topmost card and reads out its value. Each other player then reads out the value of the same category from their cards. The best (usually the largest; in the case of debt levels though, lower is considered better) value wins the “trick”, and the winner takes all the cards of the trick and places them at the bottom of his or her pile. The winner then looks at their new topmost card, and chooses the category for the next round or ‘semester’.

In the event of a draw the cards are placed in the quad and a new category is chosen from the next card by the same person as in the previous round. The winner of that round obtains all of the cards in the quad as well as the top card from each player.

Players are eliminated when they lose their last card, and the ‘Chancellor’ is the player who obtains the whole pack.

‘Probably the most fun you can have in a university.’ A vice-chancellor

‘This data looks pretty questionable.’ DK, Wonkhe

‘This is not the kind of competition we were thinking of.’ Former government minister

That’s not all

And that is not all, there are other sets in the Wonkhe top trumps range available too:

• Degree apprenticeship providers – add some much needed vocational provision credibility to your game playing with this excitingly varied set.
• Education ministers past and present – includes such luminaries as Keith Joseph, Tony Crosland, David Blunkett, Kenneth Baker and even Margaret Thatcher and Michael Gove. Newly updated to add lots of extras from the last government.
• Chancellor Top Trumps – featuring a wide range of celebrities – from Gyles Brandreth to Reeta Chakrabarti – and others you probably haven’t heard of.
• Sector agencies through the ages – old and new – HEFCE, JISC, CDP, UCAS, AAU, LFHE – they’re all here but which are the best ones?
• Mission Group sets – MillionPlus, Russell Group or University Alliance, take your pick.
• U-Multirank Top Trumps – a controversial and challenging new set in which it is next to impossible to determine which European university scores better than any other. Endless fun. 
• Honorary Graduates – serious, frivolous, obscure and celeb Hon Grads. Get them before they are revoked.

University Top Trumps continue to be the ideal gift for the higher education wonk in your family or workplace. Place your orders online now or visit your local university bookshop and pick up a set today.