Trinity ranked in world's top 50 universities

Trinity College Dublin was today ranked the 43rd best university in the world in a top international survey.

Trinity - which was placed 13th among its European counterparts - was the only college in the country to make it into the top 50 of the Times Higher Education - QS World University Rankings.

University College Dublin was named among the world's top 100 universities for the first time. UCD is 89th in the rankings, up 19 places compared to last year.

UCC, meanwhile, is ranked 207th, up 19 places since last year.

Harvard University in the US state of Massachusetts remains top of the rankings, followed by the University of Cambridge in Britain and Yale University in Connecticut.

TCD fared even better with the 3,200 employers quizzed in the survey, who rated it 39th.

The college's Provost Dr John Hegarty said the result was a positive sign amid the current recession.

"This is a strong endorsement by the global workplace of the university's undergraduate and postgraduate programmes and of the calibre of our students," he said.

"Trinity being ranked so highly by employers in this survey validates not only the long-standing values of this university, but bodes well for national economic recovery."

More than 9,380 academics also took part in the poll, which saw the college jump six places since last year when it entered the landmark top 50 for the first time.

Trinity ranked well across five discipline categories: arts and humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, life sciences and biomedicine, engineering and IT.

Dr Hegarty said the college intended to boost its place even further in next year's survey.

"Overarching this is our goal that Trinity, by virtue of the strength and quality of our performance in education, research and training, will be a driver and source of creativity, wisdom and economic prosperity for Ireland and the wider world," he said.

But the Provost warned the Government needed to keep investing in third level education and research to ensure the continued success of Irish institutions.

"Ireland came late to the table and is playing catch up in terms of research investment in comparison with other countries," he added.'