Institutes blame staff and funds cuts for ranking fall

Cuts to both staff and funding have been blamed for further falls by most Irish universities in the latest world rankings.

However, Trinity College Dublin climbed six places to 61st, and there was a slight upward move by NUI Galway in the 2013/2014 QS World University Rankings.

Although Ireland’s performance is strong for a country of its size, the results are likely to prompt renewed arguments for Government action on third-level funding.

University College Dublin is down eight places to 139th, University College Cork slipped out of the top 200, and next-best NUIG rose three places to 284th out of 800 colleges in the rankings compiled for Quacquarelli Symonds.

Dublin City University also fell, but remains just inside the top 350. Dublin Institute of Technology and University of Limerick fell out of the top 500 and NUI Maynooth’s ranking also declined.

“The past four years have clearly been challenging for the Irish economy, and austerity measures have undoubtedly been a major factor contributing to the slide in its universities’ international standing,” said QS head of research Ben Sowter.

He said ratios of students to academic staff, which account for one fifth of each university’s score, increased substantially and employer reputation of Irish colleges declined across the board. These were offset by improvements for citations of research by staff at TCD, UCD, UCC, and NUIG.

It also emerged that the controversy over canvassing of votes by some UCC academics for the survey of international peers did not have any influence on the college’s reduced ranking. They had sent an email to other academics encouraging them to take part in the QS survey and, using text suggested by UCC president Michael Murphy, highlighted UCC’s past poor performance in the reputation survey worth 40% of overall marks.

The case prompted QS to tighten up rules on future communication between academics and any academics who had signed up through a link promoted by UCC were not invited to complete the survey. Mr Sowter said only a handful of people were identified as having done so.

“In any case, the number of potential respondents involved was far too small to have had any statistical significance,” he told the Irish Examiner.

UCC said its overall score increased on 2012, despite slipping compared to other colleges, and that it jumped from 298th to 271st for research citations.

Its vice-president for external relations, Trevor Holmes, said it is vital to balance subjective reputational measures with other objective hard data.

“Each ranking system has its own strengths and weaknesses, and QS contains a subjective opinion element within which Irish universities generally do not perform as well,” he said.

TCD and NUIG pushed for increased public funding as they welcomed their improved rankings.

“The question for the Government ahead of next month’s budget should not be whether we can afford to increase investment in higher education. The question is whether we can afford not to,” said TCD provost Patrick Prendergast.

NUIG president Jim Browne said Ireland needs continued investment in teaching and research to continue attracting the best staff and students.