Irish universities are struggling to keep pace with their international peers, according to a new global ranking of third-level institutions.
Eight Irish universities feature in the Global 2000 list for 2024, which is published on Monday by the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR), but five of those have fallen in their rankings.
Trinity College Dublin (TCD) remains Ireland’s best-performing university in the list, which measures education, employability, faculty, and research.
The national picture in Ireland “is a cause for concern, amid intensified global competition from well-funded institutions”, the CWUR noted.
TCD fell by three spots to 250 due to a decline in faculty and research. However, the CWUR said it improved in the employability indicator.
University College Dublin fell by 13 places to 301 while UCC fell eight spots to 542.
These are ahead of the University of Galway which sits at 668th place and the University of Limerick, which fell by five places to 925th place.
The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland sat at 1,013, Dublin City University at 1,134, and Maynooth University at 1,287.
The decline in rankings for these institutions is down to a drop in research performance.
CWUR president Nadim Mahassen said the rankings made it clear that “Ireland’s standing in education and research is under increasing pressure, following the rise of higher-education systems from around the world”.
“In the last five years, Ireland’s global share in scientific research fell by 3%,” he said.
“Without additional Government investment in research and development, Ireland faces the possibility of declining even further in the future.”
For the 13th year in a row, Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, topped the world ranking, maintaining a perfect 100 out of 100 score.
It is followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Standford University, while the UK’s Cambridge and Oxford rank fourth and fifth, respectively.
The rest of the global top 10 features other private US universities, including Princeton, Columbia, Pennsylvania, Yale, and Caltech.
While the rankings confirm the “world-class standing” of the US higher-education sector, the decline of “nearly two-thirds of American institutions is concerning, amid stiff competition from Chinese universities”, said Dr Mahassen.
“The overall slide of US institutions mirrors those of UK, Russian, and Japanese universities, while France saw improvements as a result of the growing number of mergers between its institutions,” he said.
China’s “remarkable rise” in the rankings is due to heavy investment in research and development, as well as the recruitment of “talented researchers in classified areas” from the US and elsewhere.
“With Chinese universities are challenging their Western counterparts, American and European institutions cannot afford to be complacent,” Dr Mahassen said.
More than 630 European universities are featured in the top 2,000.
However, the overall picture for the year for these institutions remains “bleak”, he said, amid growing competition.
