Universities’ ranking to gain from investment

IRISH universities are set to jump up the world rankings because of Government investment in fourth-level research, according to the expert body advising them on best practice.

The number of PhD graduates is set to double to around 1,200 a year under a number of Government strategies unveiled in the past year as part of its policy to increase Ireland’s global ranking as a knowledge society and generate more research-led investment.

This month’s second print run of the Irish Universities Quality Board (IUQB) good practice guidelines for PhD programmes is testament to the increased interest in putting the best structures and systems in place for the expanding doctoral or fourth-level education system.

“Ireland will soon move up the rankings because the money going in will pay dividends in terms of research publications in journals and citations for those papers,” said IUQB chief executive Pádraig Walsh.

Trinity College Dublin recently celebrated becoming the first Irish university to feature in the top 100 world universities of The Times Higher Education Supplement with its 78th place.

The IUQB’s PhD guidelines also emphasise the importance of collaboration between third-level institutions, as they compete with international universities larger than all seven in Ireland. Under the first tranche of investment to be announced soon under the Government’s €300 million Strategic Innovation Fund, colleges were encouraged to join forces on research proposals.