RCSI’s overall scoring has continued to strengthen on the 2017 rankings and the College has maintained its position in the #201- 250 category. RCSI is placed joint second out of the nine institutions in the Republic of Ireland included in the rankings.

RCSI’s performance in the rankings is linked in particular to the College’s strength in the area of citations, which is an indicator of the growing impact of RCSI researchers on the international health sciences research landscape. The College’s field-weighted citation impact (2.06) is the highest in Ireland and twice the world average with the score increasing from 81.7 to 92.8 out of 100 in the past year.

The World University Rankings are generated from five pillars, each of which represents a key area of higher education excellence: teaching, research, citations, industry income, and international outlook.

Commenting on the rankings, Professor Cathal Kelly, RCSI Chief Executive/Registrar 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, which has intensified over the past two years. It is also testament to the ambition and commitment to innovation by our faculty, staff and students.

“The increase in RCSI’s performance in citations in particular, demonstrates the highly influential health sciences research being carried out by our scientists and clinicians that is making an impact worldwide. Our StAR Programme has enabled us to recruit more leading researchers to accelerate the delivery of innovative, impactful research in the health sciences and we continue to invest in our research infrastructure with the €11m expansion of research facilities at the RCSI Education and Research Centre, Beaumont Hospital. RCSI has the highest success rate in the EU Horizon 2020 funding by an Irish institution (22.5%) and with our citation being twice the world average, we hope to make further strides in impactful health sciences research in the coming years.

“This academic year will see the most significant transformation in our teaching facilities in the College’s history with the opening of our €80m campus expansion at No. 26 York Street, the first purpose built education facility in Europe to provide clinical healthcare education through state of the art simulation technology and immersion in real world working environments.”

“We will continue to innovate and invest in buildings, research facilities and people, in order to transform healthcare education and research so our staff and students will continue to make advancements that transform the lives of patients,” Professor Kelly concluded.

Other highlights include:  

• RCSI continues to perform strongly in the area of international outlook with the College’s global impact evident from its inclusion in the top five institutions for international students. The College continues to have a strong international profile through its international research collaborations and network international staff, students, alumni and campus locations.
• RCSI has seen a rise in its scoring in the area of industry income, which has increased due to a growing number of successful relationships with industry partners.

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 maintain its position in the top 250 universities ranked by Times Higher Education is an outstanding achievement to be celebrated.”

RCSI is an international not-for-profit health sciences institution, with its headquarters in Dublin, focused on education and research to drive improvements in human health worldwide.

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.