UCC Falls in World University Rankings

     UCC has dropped 9 points in the QS World University Rankings, slipping to 191st in the world in 2012.  While UCC has been steadily climbing in international rankings since 2005, this marks the first slide backwards to pre-2010 levels.

     The QS World University Rankings is an annual report of the world’s top 700 universities which has been published since 2004. Six indicators are used to determine where Universities stand globally including faculty student ratio, citations per faculty, international orientation and a controversial academic peer review.

     While we have moved up the list in the Social Sciences and Management category (from 278th to 274th) and Life Sciences and Medicine (141st to 136th), we have dropped back in the areas of Natural Sciences, Engineering and Technology and Arts and Humanities. UCC’s complete subject rankings are as follows:

Social Sciences & Management 274

Natural Sciences 269

Life Sciences & Medicine 136

Engineering & Technology 220

Arts & Humanities 210

     Still out-ranking NUIG, NUIM and UL by a significant majority, we remain behind UCD at 131st and Trinity College Dublin. TCD has dropped significantly over the past number of years but still tops the bill in Ireland at 67th position worldwide.

     Students’ Union President Eoghan Healy states "I think that the drop in rankings is reflective of the funding crisis affecting third level in Ireland. The government increases the student contribution charge each year however this extra funding is not being spent on the education sector"

    UCC attained a 5 Star QS rating in 2011, making it the first Irish University to gain such an honour. The Star Rating looks at different criteria to the World Rankings including Research Quality, Teaching Quality, Graduate Employability, Infrastructure, Internationalisation, Innovation & Knowledge Transfer, Third Mission and Specialist Subject Criteria.  Since UCC’s rating, NUIG have also attained a 5 star rating and UL have attained a 4 star rating.

     The top 5 universities in 2012 are Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of Cambridge, Harvard University, University College London (UCL) and University of Oxford.

Audrey Ellard Walsh