Ruskin College
Historically there has always been a close association between the Trust and Ruskin College, the adult education college in Oxford.
Between 1989 and 2006 the Trust sponsored individual students from Eastern Europe (outside the EU or aspiring EU members) for one term ‘fellowships’ at Ruskin with a bias in terms of their subject matter to the Webbs’ own objectives of democracy and economic and social justice.
Many of these former students now hold important roles in their countries civil service, trade unions or academic institutions. Some have become politicians. Ruskin maintains, on behalf of the Trust, a database of ex-fellows.
In 2007 Ruskin, with the support of the Trust, established the Webb Institute of Leadership and Democracy on Ruskin’s campus at Headington, Oxford. It has run courses for delegates from emerging countries from the old Soviet block and for a number of UK trade unions.