This is how Irish colleges have fared in the latest world university subject rankings
Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin are in the world’s top 50 for nursing and other subjects, but other Irish universities have mixed fortunes in the latest discipline-specific rankings.
The 24th-place position of UCD in the world’s providers of veterinary science degrees is the top ranking for any Irish college in the QS World University Rankings by Subject, published this afternoon.
The overall picture reveals the arts and humanities as Ireland’s main strength, with Irish universities’ provision for 11 subjects under that heading putting them in the respective top 100 globally. A further 10 top 100 placements have been earned in life sciences and medicine.
Both TCD and UCD’s nursing programmes make the top 50 - 25th and 31st, respectively - and those at University College Cork and NUI Galway retain top 100 positions.
Across 48 subjects analysed for QS, based on responses of employer and academic surveys, and on research citations, there are 127 mentions for 10 Irish colleges.
As well as the seven universities, also featured are the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland whose four mentions include reaching the top 250 for medicine. The National College of Art and Design moves into the top 150 in its field
Dublin Institute of Technology is listed in the top 400 under three engineering headings, but this represents a drop from the top 350 in two of those.
This reflects a wider trend observed by QS, which said that Irish colleges have just one top-100 department across six categories within the engineering and technology fields.
TCD features in the top 100 of 20 subjects, including top 50 positions for nursing, classics, English (28th in both) and politics (43rd).
It already ranks as Ireland’s best university in QS and other broader world rankings, and TCD dean of research Professor Linda Doyle said the latest achievement is testimony to the globally-competitive research of staff and the quality of students that the college attracts.
“It is particularly important that employers as well as academics were consulted for these rankings, demonstrating how well regarded Trinity graduates are by employers worldwide,” she said.
However, when improvements at Trinity are excluded, the number of drops in rank recorded exceeds the number of rises in the subject rankings by more than two to one.
NUI Galway is one of the few Irish universities to improve in recent general university rankings, but it has fallen in 11 subject areas and improved in just two of the 25 disciplines for which it is listed by QS.
University College Cork drops in six of the 20 subject rankings in which it appears, and moves up the bandings for just two, reaching 160th for engineering and technology, and the top 250 for environmental sciences.
UCD gains places in four subjects but is down in nine rankings.
