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TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN has been announced as the only Irish university to make it into the world’s top 150 this year, but an error in the data it supplied to the rankings body meant that it hasn’t been rated as highly as it should have over the past couple of years.
For 2016/17, Trinity has been ranked as 131st in the world.
It wasn’t ranked in the last round of Times Higher Education World University rankings because of an error in the documentation it supplied to Times Higher Education (THE).
When they were excluded from the rankings which were announced last September, a spokesperson for Trinity College told TheJournal.ie said it was working closely with THE to resolve the issue which is a result of “underestimating research income”.
The rankings judge different universities based on their citations, industry income, international outlook, research and teaching.
A statement from Trinity today said that they had “discovered an error in its returns and undertook an audit of data”.
This error “incorrectly depressed Trinity’s ranking”, they said.
When they drew the error to the THE’s attention, their rankings have been changed to reflect this.
This means that Trinity is ranked 131st in the world this year, and came in 101st place in 2015-16.
Dean of Research, Professor John Boland, said: “It is good news for the University and good news for Ireland which now more so than ever needs to promote and nurture the success of flagship institutions with a truly global reach.
That said, we have still dropped 30 places in a single year. This amounts to a 30% drop in rank and crystallises the international headwinds facing the Irish university sector following a decade of neglect and chronic underfunding.
“If the Government expects excellence from the universities and the capacity to create the sort of skilled workforce needed in a post-Brexit world, it must begin to invest in education once again.”
The results for Ireland weren’t positive in the THE World University Rankings for 2016-17, with no other university making it into the top 100.
The following was provided before Trinity’s mark was reaffirmed.
Phil Baty, the editor of the rankings, said at the time that the statistics represented “bad news for Ireland”. He said:
The country’s best universities are struggling in the most comprehensive and the most exacting of all the global rankings. While the root of the problem is the increased competition among the world’s elite universities, particularly those in Asia, it seems clear that the major funding cuts endured by Ireland’s universities are causing problems.
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Still nothing to be proud of.
Considering the tech giants on trinity’s door step, they should be positioning themselves as the Stanford of Europe.
Sup, go google how they are ranked. A lot of it is about money, money, particle accelerators on campus, money, a 50,000seater stadium, money, a few Olympic size swimming pools etc. And also things like ratio of students to nurses/doctors/etc on campus. Ratio of students to books available in the library. We just don’t have the benefactors the likes of a lot of Universities in England and the U.S have.
@Gary:
Well said.
This country doesn’t have the money to get much higher on those rankings
How do you know someone is a Student from Trinity, they’ll tell you their course and what level of degree and Finally that their studying in Trinity before they tell you their name.
@Diogenes: * they’re
@Diogenes: You were right the first time with ‘their’, I reckon
@Diogenes: Haha, more fool me, actually! I apologise
Why shouldn’t they? They worked hard for it.
@Senan O’Mahony: lettin the side down Senan FFS :D
Trinity has always and will always be the most prestigious university in Ireland end of sthory
But not a patch on Trinity, Cambridge…
Also not in London.
We’re number 131!
We’re number 131!
Doesn’t really work, does it?
They must have missed the deadline to pay, glad for them that they sorted it out
Imagine that Trinity made an error!!!!!
Suck it UCD!
An error? Was Trinity falsely accused of sexual abuse too?
@Matt Connolly:What are you talking about?
Many here dislike the English – journal posters tell them that Brexit was stupid and that London is an awful place. But are fast to claim their Institution – founded by their monarchy – as being ours, and the best. Double standards or what?
@Alanine Pipeline: What a breathtakingly stupid comment. Trinity is in Ireland, that makes it Irish, hope that clears it up for you.
Bit of a stretch there Alanine. All the way back to 1592. Go back another 500 years and Dublin was a Viking town. Things change.
But A&D – do you not think we choose what is/was ours?
As a proud graduate of the proletarian alternative, I am most proud…
Huzzah!
So just about slowing down the tumble
You’d think when they ‘ drew the attention to the error’ they’d have put a bit more in the envelope to get higher up the rankings
have your say