university

Depends on the course and reputation of the uni.

would you apply to a university course if the year you start was the first year that it was introduced?

would you be more likely to apply if it was a Russel group university?

As above, very variable. For courses that are stringently accredited like most healthcare professions courses, then I wouldn't be that concerned about it. For purely "academic" courses, especially ones which are a brand new subject for the uni and rely a lot on teaching like language based courses, you would want to be very careful because without any background info to contextualise the course, you may well be walking into something very poorly organised and taught (as it wouldn't have those same accreditation requirements and other "safeguards" in place).

For courses that are born out of another department or jointly between departments, it probably depends a bit on the departments involved and how closely related the subject is to one or both. For example, Southampton recently has started offering chemical engineering, spun out from their engineering and chemistry departments respectively. Since both those departments have been historically very strong, I imagine the course will do fairly well since it plays to those same strengths (there is also some local industry that might provide a good industrial link, either officially or just organised by students there to boot!).

Conversely, consider economics at KCL, which spun out of its departments of political economy and management, respectively a few years ago. While the two departments are relatively well regarded I think, the management dept isn't "top tier" by a fair margin, and both departments are somewhat removed from the actual subject area of economics and so there is crucially a questionmark on the course about a) how quantitative it is (since both the main subjects by the departments are not necessarily as quantitative as an economics degree necessarily needs to be) and b) how well received by graduate employers it would be. That course in my opinion is a bit more of a gamble as a result.

Also as noted no matter what there might be some admin/organisational and quality of life issues with any new course at first.

Thank you for your detailed response
The course that I am thinking of is a creative arts and industries degree at uni of Glasgow. They have a department already for school of creative culture and arts - so it seems like they have the research already and should know what they are doing. I'm debating on applying to this course as my 5th option but I'm not sure if it's a waste of space on my application.

Would you recommend applying to a course like this? Since it is a niche subject.

Why not? It sounds like they're established in that area so if you're interested in it by all means apply. I'm definitely not the right person to as about whether to study a niche subject since I'm studying Sanskrit which is VERY "niche"

My perspective is if the niche subject is your interest you should definitely apply!

oh wow I never knew that was a degree. That's really interesting what university are you studying Sanskrit at? Also I think I'll keep looking for what my 5th option could be and if I cant find any that I like then I'll just put Glasgow :P