THREE-QUARTERS OF Irish universities have fallen in global rankings, but Trinity College Dublin is still rated the best in the country.

The rankings are based on quality of education, employability, quality of faculty, and research.

Ireland’s overall slip in the Global 2000, which is released today, is mainly due to research performance amid intensified global competition from well-funded institutions, the Centre for World University Rankings said.

University College Dublin (UCD) is the only Irish university that ranked higher on the list than it did last year.

Here’s how they’re all faring:

1. Trinity College Dublin – 259th (250th in 2024)
2. University College Dublin – 299th (301st last year)
3. University College Cork – 545th (542nd)
4. University of Galway – 707th (668th)
5. University of Limerick – 926th (925th)
6. Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland – 1013rd (no change)
7. Dublin City University – 1151st (1134th) 
8. Maynooth University – 1323rd (1287th)

Harvard is the top university in the world for the fourteenth year in a row.

However, other US institutions have declined in some areas amid slashed government funding and disputes over academic freedom and free speech.

In the top ten, Harvard is followed by two other private US institutions, MIT and Stanford. The UK’s Cambridge and Oxford are the world’s highest-rated public universities, coming fourth and fifth.

The rest of the global top ten are also private American universities: Princeton, Pennsylvania, Columbia, Yale, and Chicago.

For the first time, China has surpassed the US as the country with the most universities in the Global 2000.

While Oxford and Cambridge maintain their high rankings, the overall outlook for Britain is unfavourable, as 75% of universities have fallen down the list.

The top ten universities in Europe this year are: Cambridge (UK, 4th), Oxford (UK, 5th), PSL (France, 19th), UCL (UK, 20th), Imperial College London (UK, 28th), Paris City University (France, 29th), ETH Zurich (Switzerland, 32nd), Paris Saclay (France, 34th), Institut Polytechnique de Paris (France, 35th), and Copenhagen (Denmark, 38th).