Irish university rankings rise in 'extremely challenging' landscape 

University College Cork (UCC) was ranked as one of the world’s top universities for the study of 20 subjects, with Nursing its top-rated course. File photo: Denis Minihane

Irish university courses in the arts, humanities and nursing rank highly on a global scale, despite an “extremely challenging” landscape.

The latest round of university rankings show the sector has increased its footings in the top-200 global subject rankings, despite budgetary constraints, according to the latest round of QS rankings.

Most countries who recorded improvements also enjoyed significant levels of government financial support, according to Jack Moran, QS spokesman.

“Irish universities are currently, relative to their global peers, operating in an extremely challenging landscape.

“While most of the higher education systems that have recorded representational or performance improvements, Russia, Malaysia, China, Singapore, have enjoyed significant levels of government financial support, Irish universities have been operating within budgetary constraints for over a decade now.” 

Stronger structural support will be necessary to meet funding shortfalls and ensure the continued competitiveness of Irish research, he added. 

The QS rankings by subject include independent data on the performance of 146 programs at 10 Irish universities, across 51 academic disciplines. 

The four key metrics used to compile the rankings are: 

• Academic reputation; 
• employer reputation; 
• research citations; 
• and h-index score, a way of measuring both the productivity and impact of the published work of a scientist or scholar. 

Veterinary Science at University College Dublin, which has risen nine places year-on-year to rank 23rd, is Ireland's highest-ranking programme. It is closely followed by English Language and Literature at Trinity College Dublin (TCD). 

In terms of top-100 programs, Ireland is the 23rd-strongest global higher education nation based on 34 programs across four institutions.

University College Cork (UCC) was ranked as one of the world’s top universities for the study of 20 subjects, with Nursing its top-rated subject.  The University of Limerick was also named one of the world's top universities for the study of 14 subjects, ranking highly in sports, education and literature. 

Communications and education programmes at Dublin City University (DCU) have also continued to rise up the rankings this year, with both now rated amongst the top 150 in the world.

The university has also retained its position as Ireland’s number one university for Communication and Media Studies. 

Globally, Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology share the status of ‘world’s best university’, each ranking as global number one in 12 tables.

Chinese higher education continues to rank highly, with the sector attaining a record number of programs now achieving a top-50 rank.

In Europe, Switzerland’s ETH Zurich was ranked as the top university. In Britain, 13 of the 51 subject tables are topped by a British university, with the University of Oxford leading five of those 13.