Eight universities in top 200 subject-by-subject ranking list

Trinity College Dublin tops a list of eight Irish colleges which feature in the top 200 of subject-by-subject rankings of the world’s universities.

It features in the top 200 for 24 of the 30 study disciplines for which tables were compiled by QS World University Rankings, including top-50 placings for English language and literature, politics, history, and modern languages.

The rankings were based on global reputation surveys among employers and academics, with University College Dublin in the top 200 for 25 subjects and ranked 50th to 100th in eight. University College Cork is in the top 100 for three subjects — modern languages, biological sciences, and law — and between 100th and 200th for seven more.

There are top 200 places also for NUI Galway (five subjects), NUI Maynooth and University of Limerick (two each), Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, and Dublin City University (one each).

While there have been criticisms about falls for Irish colleges in some of the more prominent global rankings in recent years, individual subject rankings are seen by some experts as more relevant because they allow greater recognition of specialisations. The inclusion of five Irish colleges in the top 200 for arts and humanities, and four each under the modern languages, computer science, medicine, geography and law categories may boost efforts to attract international students and inward investment by multinational firms.

QS (Quacquarelli Symonds) last month changed the rules for its wider World University Rankings, due out in September, after concerns were raised about approaches by UCC academics to their international colleagues, as instructed by college president Michael Murphy.

The university denied any improper conduct but the rules have been made more explicit about how colleges or their staff may ask others to sign up for the academic reputation survey that is an important part of the scoring.

Another 15 Irish colleges were cited by academics in at least one subject, but were not among the 678 to have received a ranking, out of 2,859 third-level colleges evaluated.

Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology were listed first in 10 subjects and seven subjects, respectively.

A European Universities’ Association report last month said comparisons on a subject basis can be much more useful for institutions than global league tables that try to encapsulate entire colleges in a single score. However, it also pointed to weaknesses around reputation surveys and said colleges are sometimes nominated as excellent and ranked in subjects they do not teach or conduct research on.