UCC was one of only two Irish universities to improve its standing in the QS rankings.
Ronan Costello
Editor
TCD has been ranked at 65 in the newly released QS World University Rankings. This is a fall of 13 places on last year’s position and reflects a downward slide in ratings for most of Ireland’s universities. The two universities to improve their position were UCC, up from 184 to 181, and DCU, up from 330 to 326.
Trinity has lost ground in the past two years, being placed at 43 in 2009 and 52 in 2010. UCD, Ireland’s second highest ranked university, has experienced a similar downgrade, dropping from 89 in 2009 to 134 this year.
The misfortune of Irish universities in these rankings has been blamed by the cuts in funding to the third level sector. Trinity Provost Dr Patrick Prendergast said that a world class university “requires resourcing at internationally competitive levels and for Trinity to sustain its position and increase further worldwide requires adequate investment in the university sector.”
The Provost was keen to insist that Trinity still competes at the highest level internationally and that this was particularly commendable when its operating budget was only 66% of that available to its UK counterparts. Dr Prendergast is openly in favour of the reintroduction of a fee system to offset the funding crisis in third level education, insisting that its the only viable way to maintain Trinity’s competitiveness on the international stage.
Cambridge University has been ranked as the best university in the world for the second consecutive year. Harvard, MIT and Yale followed.
The full list of rankings can be found here.
