With all the mission groups, strategic alliances and research networks of which modern universities are part, they might be forgiven for questioning the need to be members of a non-selective club established at the height of the British Empire.

However, according to John Wood, the Association of Commonwealth Universities¡¯ secretary general, the body continues to add more members to the 53 that signed up in 1913 to the Universities Bureau of the British Empire, the organisation¡¯s original name.

In an interview with Times Higher Education to mark the association¡¯s centenary, Professor Wood said that membership - which currently stands at 540 institutions - was particularly valued in the developing world.

¡°Many universities there feel isolated and are under horrendous political pressure. Being linked into all these other institutions¡­gives them authentication with their governments,¡± the former chief executive of the UK¡¯s Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils said.

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To that end, the association is developing a set of metrics - distinct from those typically utilised by Western-dominated global university rankings - that its members in developing countries could use to demonstrate to their governments that they are ¡°doing a good job¡±.

However, despite the Indian government¡¯s prompting, the association remains reluctant to limit its membership by imposing stricter entry criteria than the existing requirement: institutions must have run nationally accredited degree programmes for at least six years. Professor Wood¡¯s preference was to develop a self-benchmarking framework ¡°so universities can find out for themselves if they are doing the right thing without us¡­judging them¡±.

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The ACU¡¯s 75 staff - two-thirds of whom administer scholarship programmes - are still located in London (the University of London was the driving force behind the organisation¡¯s establishment). But Professor Wood said the ACU is also contemplating opening an office in India, where it has 173 members - a figure that is rising rapidly.

Many of the association¡¯s programmes are focused on the developing world, including its work on open access, early-career academics and investigating how university teachers without doctorates can remain ¡°one step ahead¡± of students in an era of massive open online courses.

For this reason, Professor Wood admitted that some Western universities were less convinced that their membership fees - which vary according to national gross domestic product and an institution¡¯s size - represented a good investment.

However, apart from Imperial College London, most high-ranked members have stayed put, motivated by consciousness of their role-model status and, more pragmatically, by the access that membership affords to the association¡¯s many networks based around generic issues such as human resources, public relations and gender.

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Western vice-chancellors also appreciated the ¡°breathing space¡± membership offered them, allowing them to stand back from the everyday business of running their institutions and reflect on their goals, Professor Wood added.

Others had even more basic needs: ¡°I asked one retired Canadian vice- chancellor why he had stayed in. He told me: ¡®I just needed a shoulder to cry on,¡¯¡± the secretary general said.

paul.jump@tsleducation.com