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Four top-50s and 43 world-ranked subjects for UCD in 2024 QS World University Rankings by Subject

Posted 10 April, 2024

  • University College Dublin leads in Employer Reputation across Irish universities

University College Dublin remains one of the world’s top universities, with four top-50 and 16 top-100 subjects ranked in the latest edition of the (opens in a new window)QS World University Subject Rankings.

The four subjects at UCD ranked amongst the best in the world are Library & Information Management (27), English Language & Literature (40), Veterinary Science (42), and Petroleum Engineering (43).

The number of UCD subjects in the top 100 increased to 16, up from 13 in 2023, and the University remains Ireland’s most represented in the Rankings, which now includes 43 UCD subjects, seven of which improved their position over last year, and 23 remained unchanged.

UCD is ranked in all five broad subject areas, with the QS classification of Arts & Humanities remaining its strongest entry.

Top 50 subject rankings for UCD

  • Library & Information Management
  • English Language & Literature
  • Veterinary Science
  • Petroleum Engineering

Top 51 - 100 subject rankings for UCD

  • Agriculture & Forestry
  • Law
  • Anatomy & Physiology
  • Archaeology
  • Geography
  • History
  • Nursing
  • Performing Arts
  • Philosophy
  • Politics & International studies
  • Social Policy & Administration
  • Sports Related Subjects

The QS Subject Rankings are based on five criteria: Academic Reputation, Employer Reputation, Citations per Paper, H-Index, and International Research Network (IRN) Index.

For Ireland, UCD is the leading institution when it comes to Employer Reputation, with Nursing achieving the country's highest score (84.1) in this metric.

The University’s best performances in each of the other areas were as follows: 

  • In Academic Reputation, the best performing subject was in English Language & Literature, it scored 80.4.
  • In Citations per Paper, Veterinary Science was the subject in which UCD earned its highest score (94.3). 
  • In H-Index, Agriculture & Forestry received a score of 86.1.
  • And while the IRN index is not used in all subjects, its best performance for UCD was in Computer Science & Information Systems with a score of 82.9.

For the 2024 Subject Rankings, QS analysed reputation and research data of almost 5,000 institutions. From this, 1,561 were ranked across a total of 55 narrow subjects and five broad subject areas.
 
For its latest edition, 184 programmes at 11 Irish universities were examined. 

Of those included in the ranked entries, 29% climb the table and 22% drop down – with 42% remaining stable in their rank or band.

“Ireland’s continued improvement in QS’ subject rankings is a testament to its resilience and its position as a high-quality destination for international study,” said QS Senior Vice President Ben Sowter.

Globally US universities lead in 32 subjects with Harvard University being the world’s strongest-performing institution, ranking first in 19 disciplines.

By: David Kearns, Digital Journalist / Media Officer, UCD University Relations

To contact the UCD News & Content Team, email: newsdesk@ucd.ie