Trinity College Dublin has been ranked number one in Ireland in the recently published Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) for 2014. It has moved to 151-200 in the world in 2014 compared with 201-250 in 2013, an increase of up to 50 places and the highest ever score of any Irish university in this ranking. The move consolidates Trinity’s position as Ireland’s highest ranked university and among the world’s leading higher education institutions.
It increased its score significantly under the Shanghai ARWU Ranking’s major criteria in ‘Quality of Faculty’ and ‘Research Output,’ and has maintained its high position under ‘Quality of Education’.
ARWU has been presenting the world top 500 universities annually based on a set of objective indicators and third-party data. It adopts six indicators to rank world universities, including the number of alumni and staff winning Nobel prizes and fields medals, the number of highly cited researchers, the number of articles published in journals of Nature and Science, the number of articles indexed in Science Citation Index − Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index, and per capita performance.
Commenting on its significance, Provost, Dr Patrick Prendergast said:
“Today’s ranking confirms Trinity’s position as Ireland’s premier university, competing at the highest international level. It is the only university in Ireland to feature in the top 151-200 global universities despite the decrease in funding of higher education in Ireland. Trinity’s owes its position in this ranking to the calibre of its staff and alumni, past and present, and to the continuing excellence and international impact of its research.”
