Ireland outside world elite in university rankings

Irish universities remain outside the world’s elite when it comes to reputation among global academics, according to the latest rankings.

The Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings show improved placements and representation for UK universities, but still no Irish colleges.

Rankings editor Phil Baty said though they only publish the top 100 universities — around 0.5% of around 20,000 third-level institutions globally — TCD unofficially falls between 150th and 200th, with UCD “a little way outside the top 200”.

“Perhaps the worry around Ireland is from that European perspective, the French universities have done quite well, British universities have made some progress and Germany is still third behind the US and UK, with six institutions in the top 100,” Mr Baty said.

The reputation rankings are topped again by Harvard in the US, but British universities Cambridge and Oxford have leapfrogged US rivals Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University into second and third, from fourth and fifth a year ago.

The rest of the top 10 are US colleges: Berkeley, Princeton, Yale, California Institute of Technology, and Columbia, with more than 30 others in the top 100.

It features 12 UK universities in the top 100, up from 10 last year, and five each in France, the Netherlands and Australia.

The findings are based on survey responses from 9,800 academics in 142 countries worldwide who were asked to nominate 10 best institutions in their own area of expertise.

In the 2014 rankings, NUI Galway passed UCC into 261st, with UCC ranked between 276 and 300.