Though not the be-all-and-end-all measure of academic performance, the world university rankings from the Times Higher Education are taken very seriously by colleges, organisations and students around the world. Making an appearance on the list can greatly enhance a college’s international reputation and prospects. Thankfully, the latest list is not without Irish representation.
The latest Times Higher Education rankings, however, are restrictive in that they deal only with younger universities (that is, those that are 50 years old or less). The purpose of the new compilation is to highlight the breakthrough centres of academic excellence – in other words, the new colleges that are breathing down the necks of the established elite.
The Irish universities that performed their ways onto the list were NUI Maynooth (which placed 74 on the list) and DCU (which placed 84). They were marked on a number of criteria including teaching, research, knowledge transfer, international outlook and citations.
Sitting pretty at the top of the list – for the second consecutive year – was South Korea’s Pohang University of Science and Technology.
Five of the top ten universities were European, four were Asian, and one was American. While this is the same number of European colleges as appeared in the 2012 rankings, it is one more for the region of Asia and one less for America.
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