About University College Dublin

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN (UCD) is one of Europe’s leading research-intensive universities where undergraduate education, postgraduate masters and PhD training, research, innovation and community engagement form a dynamic continuum of activity.

The university was established in 1854 by John Henry Newman whose classic work The Idea of a University is one of the most enduring texts on the value of higher education and a source of inspiration for UCD’s current educational philosophy.

UCD Global

 

Today UCD is Ireland’s largest university with almost 25,000 students. It is the most popular destination for Irish school-leavers and actively promotes university life as a journey of academic and personal discovery through its highly innovative and flexible UCD Horizons undergraduate curriculum.

UCD is Ireland’s leader in postgraduate education with approximately 7,000 postgraduate students, representing approximately 28% of the UCD student population, and almost 2,000 PhD students. Over 50% of UCD undergraduates progress to postgraduate studies.

UCD is home to over 5,000 international students and, in addition, places great emphasis on the internationalisation of the Irish student experience – preparing all UCD students for future employment and life that crosses borders, boundaries and cultures.

The role of UCD within Irish higher education is underscored by the fact that UCD alone accounts for over 30% of international students, over 25% of all postgraduate students and almost 28% of all doctoral enrolments across the seven Irish universities.

UCD By Numbers

Note: Student numbers relate to academic year 2011/12

UCD is the national leader in research funding, attracting quality investment that has helped the university to establish a reputation as a world-class destination for leading researchers. The university has established four major interdisciplinary research themes that match Ireland’s needs and current global challenges.

UCD keeps an external focus, seeking to lead and shape agendas through alliances and partnerships with its peers, nationally and internationally.

The international standing of UCD has increased rapidly in recent years and the university is currently ranked within the top 1% of institutions world-wide by the Times Higher Education rankings.

UCD is located on a beautiful leafy 133-hectare campus close to Dublin’s city centre, which provides a mix of academic facilities, research institutes, libraries and archival collections, enterprise space, student villages, and sports and recreational facilities.

History

Originally known as the Catholic University of Ireland and subsequently as the Royal University, the university became UCD in 1908 and a constituent college of the National University of Ireland (NUI). In 1997, UCD became an autonomous university within the loose federal structure of the NUI and UCD students are awarded degrees of the National University of Ireland.

UCD has been a major contributor to the making of modern Ireland. Many UCD students and staff participated in the struggle for Irish independence and the university has produced numerous Irish Presidents and Taoisigh (Prime Ministers) in addition to generations of Irish business, professional, cultural and sporting leaders. Among UCD’s well-known graduates are authors (Maeve Binchy, Roddy Doyle, Flann O’Brien), actors (Gabriel Byrne, Sinead Cusack, Brendan Gleeson), directors (Neil Jordan, Jim Sheridan) and sports stars such as Irish rugby captain Brian O’Driscoll and former Manchester United and Ireland captain Kevin Moran. Perhaps the best known of all its graduates is the writer James Joyce, who completed his Bachelor of Arts at the university in 1902.

For more on UCD's history, click here.

Teaching and Learning

UCD today still draws inspiration from the educational philosophy of its founder, John Henry Newman. UCD undergraduates are expected not just to become expert in their major subjects but also to explore a broader knowledge base and disciplinary mix through the elective system. In addition, students are actively encouraged to become involved in the many clubs, societies, sports and volunteering activities which have always been such a special part of UCD campus life.

UCD offers a wide range of undergraduate programmes. In addition to high quality programmes in the humanities, social sciences and the natural, physical and performance sciences, UCD offers courses in most professional disciplines including architecture, business, education, engineering, law, medicine, nursing, physiotherapy, and diagnostic imaging. To view a complete list of UCD’s undergraduate and graduate programmes go to www.ucd.ie/prospective.html

UCD is the only university on the island of Ireland to offer programmes across the spectrum of agriculture, food science, food safety and veterinary medicine. UCD Quinn School of Business is highly internationally networked and a major feeder to UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business, one of the world’s great graduate business schools.

The high quality learning and student experience at UCD is made visible through the attributes of the UCD graduate. Achieving these attributes drives UCD’s education objectives and institutional priorities. The UCD graduate is academically excellent, intellectually flexible and culturally literate, and globally engaged.

The modularisation of UCD’s extensive portfolio of taught graduate programmes and the development of the UCD Structured PhD and Graduate Schools hasestablished the university as a national leader in graduate education. UCD also offers a menu of continuing professional development, executive education and adult learning opportunities.

Fore more information on UCD Teaching and Learning, click here.

Research and Innovation

UCD has prioritised four major research themes which build on the university’s established or emerging research strengths, dovetail with national research policy objectives and contribute to the preservation and exploration of Ireland’s cultural heritage and the development of solutions for current global challenges. The priority areas are:

• Earth Sciences, Energy and the Environment
• Health and Healthcare Delivery
• Information, Computation and Communication
• Global Ireland.

UCD is home to a number of primary Research Institutes which have been established to provide world-class facilities for a critical mass of academics and PhD students who are conducting research into a broad spectrum of areas. These include:

• UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research
• UCD Geary Institute
• UCD Complex and Adaptive Systems Laboratory
• UCD Institute for Food and Health
• UCD Humanities Institute
• UCD Urban Institute

UCD also leads or partners in several major externally-funded Centres for Science, Engineering and Technology, Strategic Research Clusters, Inter-Institutional Collaborative Programmes and Research Centres in such areas as:

• Sensor web technologies
• Systems biology
• Nanobiotechnology and biopharmaceuticals
• Drug delivery
• Solar energy conversion
• Financial mathematics
• Technology research for independent living and healthy ageing
• Electricity grid integration
• Molecular medicine
• War studies
• Life courses issues and public policy.

For more on UCD's research programmes click here.

In addition the university hosts research programmes built around key archival collections and databases such as:

• Papers of many of Ireland’s key political parties and leaders
• Irish Franciscan Archive
• Irish Folklore Archive
• Irish Virtual Research Library and Archive (IVRLA)
• Irish Social Science Data Archive (ISSDA)

The university has won over €480m in externally funded research contracts in the last five years.

The UCD-TCD Innovation Alliance is a partnership between University College Dublin and Trinity College Dublin (TCD), Ireland's leading research universities. Its over-arching objective is to leverage the combined resources of both institutions in concert with the State and its agencies, and business and venture capital communities to develop a world-class ecosystem for innovation that will drive enterprise development in Ireland.

UCD has one of Ireland’s most successful technology transfer and incubator units, NovaUCD, which supports both companies spinning out from the university’s research programmes and external start-ups wishing to avail of the university’s pool of expertise and technologies.

For more information visit UCD Research.

Internationalising the Student Experience

UCD is home to over 5,000 international students from 121 countries (2011-12). Many of these are full degree undergraduate or postgraduate students spread across UCD’s full range of subjects.

UCD also offers vibrant Junior Year Abroad (JYA) and Semester Abroad programmes for international students seeking to sample Irish and European education and culture for shorter periods. While initially designed for US students these programmes are becoming increasing popular for students from other countries.

UCD has student exchange and/or collaborate educational programmes with many leading Chinese universities including Beijing University, Tsinghua University, Renmin University, Fudan University, Wuhan University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Shenzhen University.

UCD has recently partnered with Beijing University of Technology (BJUT) to establish the first international university in the Chinese capital. UCD also runs overseas programmes in partnership with leading international universities and private higher education providers in China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Spain, and Sri Lanka.

UCD students have access to a variety of study abroad and international volunteering opportunities. The university has the largest outgoing cohort of Erasmus exchange programme of any English-speaking university in Europe. In addition, UCD is a member of the Universitas 21 network of global research universities which offers a variety of student mobility initiatives, including the Undergraduate Research Conference, Summer School and traditional exchange programmes.

UCD’s Volunteers Overseas (UCDVO) and Medical Students Overseas Relief societies send hundreds of students volunteering per annum to the developing world.

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