Trinity blames 'underfunding' as college slips further down global university rankings

Students in Trinity College Dublin. Picture: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie

Ireland’s leading university has slipped down in the latest set of global rankings, citing underfunding and high student-staff ratios as reasons for its fall in the international university league table. 

Trinity College Dublin (TCD) retains its status as Ireland’s top-ranked university in the latest round of the Times Higher Education (THE) World rankings, published on Wednesday.

However, it fell 15 places compared to its 2022 ranking, from 146th to 161st.

It was a mixed year for Irish universities in the international THE rankings, which record data from almost 1,800 intuitions based on five different categories.

This includes teaching (including staff-student ratios), research, citations, international outlook, and industry income.

TCD provost Linda Doyle said the university remained at 98th in the QS World University Rankings, published last summer.

“We know rankings never capture all that any university has to offer, and they should not drive our behaviour — rather our behaviour should drive the rankings,” she said. 

TCD “scored strongly” in several categories in the 2023 rankings, but overall it suffered due to its high student-staff ratios, she added.

“More importantly than the rankings, it also hurts the education experience of our students," she said.

The poor staff-student ratio is directly related to the underfunding of the higher education sector in Ireland.” 

The Government must honour the commitment it made earlier this year in Funding the Future, which commits to increasing annual core funding by €307m for the higher education sector in Ireland, she added.

“This would allow us to hire more staff and tackle the issue of staff-student ratios. Until this is addressed, these rankings will remain precarious for us."

The underinvestment in the university sector in Ireland is reflected in high student/staff ratios, lower postgraduate/undergraduate student ratios and infrastructures, which adversely influence the overall ranking, according to TCD dean of research Professor Wolfgang Schmitt. 

“In addition, high living costs and low PhD stipends have become factors in our ability to attract talent," he said.

To sustain a knowledge-based economy and remain internationally competitive, significant investment in the university sector and academic excellence is required."

Other Irish universities

The University of Galway, previously known as NUIG, saw its THE 2023 ranking improve, from 351-440th to 301-350th, while University College Cork (UCC) fell from 251–300th to 301-350th. 

RCSI, University College Dublin (UCD), the University of Limerick (UL) and Technological University Dublin (TUD) each maintained their positions.

Both Maynooth University and Dublin City University (DCU) saw their rankings rise compared to 2022. 

Despite maintaining a strong overall position in the World University Rankings, Europe experienced significant falls. 

The top institutions in France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Ireland all dropped, while some of Germany’s top 100 universities have also slipped. 

According to THE, competition from Asia is heating up as the overall number of ranked universities from Asia (669) now outnumbers that of Europe (639).

The University of Oxford in England took the number one spot for the seventh consecutive year. 

Harvard University ranks at number two, followed by the University of Cambridge, Stanford University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).