Trinity stands at 101st in the QS world university ranking for the second year running.
The university performed well in academic reputation, but – in what has become a trend in past years – declined in global scores associated with student–staff ratios.
Trinity continues to be the top-ranked Irish university, and the stabilisation of its place in the rankings will be welcome in College after years of decline prior to last year when it rose seven places to 101st.
The rankings are compiled based on six factors – international faculty, international students, academic reputation, citations per faculty, employer reputation and faculty-to-student ratio.
Trinity first fell outside the top 100 in 2018, after placing 88th the year before.
In a press statement today, Provost Patrick Prendergast said: “We are pleased to see Trinity retaining its position as Ireland’s leading university in the QS World University Rankings.”
“After an enormously challenging year, this ranking makes me proud of our excellent students and faculty, whose scholarship and achievements are critical to our continued success at a global level.”
“Trinity”, he added, “scored particularly well on academic reputation, reflecting the success of the entire College community in prioritising excellence in research”.
“We would have performed even better were it not for the relatively high staff-student ratios common in Irish institutions. I know the Government has plans to invest more in third level education and I hope that this issue will slowly be resolved”, Prendergast said.
For years, Trinity has wrestled with a decline in the world rankings. In January 2020, details of its strategic plan – revealed by The University Times – showed that combatting its decline was a priority for Trinity.
University College Dublin was the next highest Irish university in the list, standing at 173rd.
Trinity was given an overall score of 59.5 by QS, and ranked highly on the “international faculty ratio” and “international students” metrics, attaining a score of 99.9 and 94.2 respectively. However, it only achieved a score of 27.7 in the student–staff ratio metric.
Massachusetts Institute of Technlogy ranked first in the world, with the University of Oxford ranking second, Stanford University and the University of Cambridge sharing the third spot and Harvard University standing at fifth.
