Trinity has been placed 43rd in the prestigious Times Higher Education/QS World University Ranking. This is a jump of six places in just one year, a much applauded achievement leaving us ahead of such reputable establishments as London School of Economics and New York University. This performance is all the more remarkable given the financial pressures bearing down on higher education in the past year. We have also been ranked 13th amongst our European counterparts. Trinity Provost Dr John Hegarty said: “Our stated ambition was to be at the front rank of world universities and among the top 50 globally. We have achieved that in a relatively short period of time and this year’s ranking of 43rd place has surpassed that original goal.” The QS World Rankings received a record level of responses this year from both the academic community and employers. This reflects the growing importance of the rankings globally. The Managing Director of QS observes that; ”Governments and Universities are investing to increase their profile and recognition on the international stage as higher education becomes a global industry. Today the QS World University Rankings are used by employers identifying from where to recruit, academics choosing where to work and with whom to form partnerships and by parents and students looking to make sound education decisions.”
The U.S. however still dominates with Harvard placed 1st for the sixth year running. In the top 10 alone six of the universities are in the US, with the other four being in the UK. There is evidence however that this US dominance is starting to slip. While it still has by far the most institutions in the top 200, with a total of 54, it has lost five institutions from the top 100 and four have dropped out of the top 200 altogether. These results suggest that the dominance of traditionally elite universities is being challenged.
Ireland fared significantly better than previous years as UCD jumped 19 spots to take 89th position. UCC, NUIG, DIT, DCU, UL and NUI Myanooth also gained considerable ground proving that the Irish education system still has that competitive edge. The success of both Trinity and UCD in securing places in the top 100 is a boost for the UCD/TCD Innovation Alliance, unveiled earlier this year. The new rankings will also help to attract international academic staff and students.
The QS World University Rankings are regarded as the most reliable guide to university performance. Colleges are ranked by academics and employers on the basis of data gathered on peer academic review; employer review; international faculty ratio; international student ratio; student faculty ratio; and citations per faculty.
To do this they use broad measures which are intended to capture teaching, research, employability and international appeal, to produce an overall indicator of institutional standing. By contrast, other university rankings take a range of approaches. The Academic Ranking of World Universities, produced by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, focuses on science, and other systems now being designed to pay more attention to teaching.
These rankings are designed to measure universities as a whole, the institutions they include must teach undergraduates. This excludes many postgraduate colleges of undoubted merit, from London Business School to the University of California at San Francisco. Each university also has to work in at least two of the five principal areas of academic life: science, biomedicine, technology, social sciences and the arts and humanities.
According to Martin Ince, Founding Editor of the Times Higher Education – QS World University Rankings; “A glance at the World University Rankings 2009 will show that the top 200 institutions are far from being a uniform group. They vary in size, the subjects they cover and their commitment to research, although all are substantial producers of new knowledge.“
A full comprehensive university is regarded as being one that is active in all five areas of scholarship – science, technology, biomedicine, social sciences and the arts and humanities – and which has a medical school. Institutions that are active in all five fields, but which lack a medical school are termed “comprehensive,” while the terms “focused” and “specialist” are used for those that work in fewer categories.
