Rankings drop ‘a wake-up call’ for universities

THE head of the Higher Education Authority has said a drop in another set of world rankings by the country’s top two universities should be a wake-up call to speed up reforms.

Although a new measurement in the Times Higher Education rankings published today places Ireland sixth in the world — ahead of the United States and other “academic giants” — for the number of universities in the top 200 relative to national wealth, the dropping reputation of individual colleges will be the biggest talking point.

The list of 400 top world universities is headed by California Institute of Technology, which has knocked Harvard off the Number 1 slot it held for eight years.