Irish College Rankings - Where does your college feature in the world rankings?

Ireland is placed 25th in the top 50 countries in the latest ranking released today of national higher education systems by QS.

Ireland fell from 20th in 2013 and from 24th last year.

Dublin City University President Brian MacCraith said: “For a grossly underfunded system, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

American universities came in first with the UK coming in second. Germany, Australia and Canada round-off the top five, all maintaining the same positions as a year ago.

The ranking assesses each country in four categories- system strength, access to the university, flagship institution, and economic context – combining university rankings with a range of other indicators to give a broader picture of national strengths in higher education provision and performance.

“Despite the underfunding, some of our universities are doing well in other university rankings,” said MacCraith.

Ireland’s seven universities are all ranked within the world’s top 650 in the QS World University Rankings 2015/16 which came out last year.

Trinity College Dublin was the only Irish University to place in the top 100, ranking 78th in the world.

University College Dublin was ranked 154th, the second highest Irish university in the table.

University College Cork was down three places to 233rd, but there were small gains for other universities. NUI Galway rose from 280 to 271, Dublin City University from 366 to 353.