Trinity College Dublin (TCD) has climbed up an annual ranking of global third-level institutions released today by Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), also known as the Shanghai Ranking, placed it in the top 200 at number 170, having been ranked in the top 201-300 last year.
University College Dublin (UCD) also moved up the ranking to 254th place after being placed in the 301-400 bracket last year.
University College Cork (UCC) – the third Irish university in the top 500 – fell from the 301-400 bracket to 454th place.
The US dominated the list with Harvard beating Stanford to the top place. Only four non-American institutions were ranked in the top 20, with Cambridge in fifth place, Oxford in joint ninth, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich in 19th place, and University College London in 20th place.
The ARWU ranks universities based on factors including the quality of alumni and staff, the number of highly cited researchers, the number of papers indexed in major citation indices, and the per capita academic performance of an institution. For each category, the highest-scoring institution is assigned a score of 100, with the rank of other institutions reflecting the number of institutions that sit above it.
TCD received its highest mark for the total number of papers indexed in 2013 Science Citation Index-Expanded and Social Science Citation Index, where it received a score of 32.
It received 10.5 for the total number of alumni with a Nobel Prize or Peace Medal and 13.3 for the total number of staff winning Nobel Prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Medicine and Economics, and Fields Medals in Mathematics. It was also awarded marks of 10.7 for the total numbers of highly-cited researchers, 13.2 for the number of papers published in Nature and Science, and 18.3 for the weighted scores of the above five indicators divided by the number of full-time equivalent academic staff.
Launched in 2003 to assess the global standing of Chinese universities, the ARWU has become one of the most respected international rankings alongside the QS University Rankings and the Times Higher Education World University Rankings.
