RCSI has significantly improved its position in the 2016-2017 Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings, which now places RCSI joint first out of the eight institutions in the Republic of Ireland included in the rankings.

THE World University Rankings employs 13 separate performance indicators to reflect strengths in five areas - teaching, research, citations, industry income and international outlook. RCSI's rise in the rankings is linked in particular to the strong performance in the area of citations, a score which measures the influence of research being carried out by the institution. RCSI's focus as an exclusively health sciences institution has enabled the College to continue to increase on the impact of its research within the fields of health sciences research.

Commenting on the rankings, Professor Cathal Kelly, RCSI Chief Executive, said: "Our strong performance in the THE World University Rankings is an affirmation of RCSI' s strategic investment in the expansion of our educational and research activities to provide impactful research, excellence in education and international leadership in medical education. It is also testament to the strong commitment to excellence by our faculty, staff and students. The increase RCSI's performance in citations in particular, demonstrates the highly influential research being carried out by our scientists and clinicians."

"We will continue to innovate and invest in buildings, research facilities and people, through our StAR programme, in order to support the delivery of excellence in education and the transfer of research discoveries into clinical practice for the benefit of patients," Professor Kelly added.

RCSI's Strategic Academic Recruitment (StAR) Programme aims to accelerate the delivery of innovative, impactful research in the health sciences through the recruitment of leading researchers across a range of specialist research areas, including the creation of novel medical devices and the development of new therapeutics and new diagnostic tests.

Phil Baty, Editor of Times Higher Education Rankings, said: "Times Higher Education's World University Rankings are the most comprehensive and the most robust global university rankings. They employ 13 separate performance indicators across the full range of a university's core missions, including teaching, research and knowledge transfer, and all data and calculations are subjected to rigorous independent audit. There are understood to be more than 20,000 higher education institutions in the world, so for RCSI to make the top 250 ranked by Times Higher Education is an outstanding achievement to be celebrated."