Irish universities are performing well against their European counterparts in areas of research and education according to recently published global rankings.
However, the EU-sponsored U-Multirank suggests Irish 3rd level institutions are falling behind the curve in the development of internships and other bridges to employment.
DCU performed very well in key areas of computer science well with three As, while NUIM got two As.
At institutional level UCC performed particularly well with A grades in three of five key areas: research; knowledge transfer (based on co-publications with industry partners); and international orientation. Cork IT got A’s in two of the five areas, while TCD got only one in research.
Unlike other international rating agencies – Shanghai, Times Higher Education and QS – U-Multirank avoids top 10 or top 100 rankings. Instead institutions are graded in 31 criteria on a five-point scale from A (very good) to E (weak).
Students can evaluate universities’ strengths and weakness across different categories using an internet tool on the U-Multirank website.
More than 1,200 colleges around the world participated, up from 850 a year ago in the first U-Multirank. The organisers say it helps give students and companies the full picture, “as no single university is good at everything”.
“Students want to find the university that’s best for them, according to their own preferences, and looking for the ‘number 1’ university in the world is misleading,” said Frank Ziegele, joint project leader.
Irish colleges do well collectively on certain research measurements, with nine out of eleven getting an A or B for citation rates and five out of seven doing so for external research income. But only four out of twelve received an A for research publications, with six that include CIT, DIT, and Maynooth University getting a D for being below average.
Elaine Carroll
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