Irish third level institutions have just taken a dip, as Trinity College and UCD have plummeted in the latest rankings of international universities.
Compiled by Topuniversities.com, the World University Rankings 2015/2016 saw Trinity College Dublin descend from 71st to 78th place, while UCD fell from 139th to 154th.
John J Boland, dean and vice-president for research at Trinity College Dublin, gave this response to The Irish Times about the rankings,
The real competition is the rest of the world, and to have our top university ranked 78th in the world is simply not good enough for Ireland, our students or our ambition to become a leading- edge knowledge-driven economy.
Another Irish university that dropped in the rankings was University College Cork, which fell three places to 233rd.
Other Irish institutions did see a rise, however, such as NUI Galway's move from 280 to 271 and Dublin City University's climb from 366 to 353.
At the top of the list, Massachusetts Institute of Technology managed to retain its number one spot, with Harvard moving up from 4th to 2nd. In joint third place are the University of Cambridge and Stanford.
Take a look below at the present top 10 ranked universities in the world:
1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
5. California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
7. UCL (University College London)
9. ETH Zurich - Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
You can find the full World University Rankings 2015/2016 here.
