UCD is an active member of the Universitas 21 university network.  Universitas 21 (U21) is an international network of 24 leading research-intensive universities in 16 countries. Collectively, its members enroll over 700,000 students, employ over 145,000 staff and have almost 2.5 million alumni.  Their collective budgets amount to over US$13bn and they have an annual research grant income of over US$3bn.  UCD joined U21 in 2006 and is the only Irish university invited to be a member of the network.

U21 provides a broad range of opportunities for international cooperation between the member institutions, including student and staff exchanges, short-term mobility, joint academic programme development, research collaboration and the sharing of best practices.  A wide range of U21 events are held each year geared towards students, staff, faculty and senior management of the member universities. 

U21 publishes news and updates from around the consortium on a regular basis in the form of an e-bulletin  and newsletter Anyone can subscribe to receive these through the U21 site.  

 UCD Graduate Studies offer U21 Exploratory scholarships

Exploratory funding is available from UCD Graduate Studies to enable members of UCD academic staff to visit one of the U21 universities to develop partnerships that will lead to the development of a joint PhD programme. The visits can be used to strengthen existing relationships as well as initiating new links with researchers at fellow U21 universities.

See: http://www.ucd.ie/graduatestudies/coursefinder/researchprogrammes/universitas-21/