UCC Named University of the Year

Byron85

It's been a good year for UCC it would seem!!

http://www.ucc.ie/en/news/fullstory-136971-en.html

University College Cork (UCC) has been selected as Ireland’s University of the Year by The Sunday Times. The award, for the third time, follows on the heels of UCC becoming the only Irish university to achieve the unique status of Ireland’s first five star university and improving its position in the QS World University Rankings. UCC President, Dr Michael Murphy expressing his immense pride at the announcement said: “This prestigious award reflects UCC's outstanding reputation as a centre of excellence for teaching and research, the highly successful Access Programme, the ability to attract international students and establish links overseas.” He added: “the high calibre of students choosing the university along with the outstanding quality of the student experience clearly places the university as a world-class education provider.”

The student body at the university now totals almost 20,000 with over 2,800 overseas students from all five continents making it one of the most international campuses on the island of Ireland. The university has over 120 degree and professional programmes given through some 60 departments.

The award is based on the fact that UCC’s overall performance outstripped the other universities in key areas. It was one of only two of Ireland’s universities to move up the QS world rankings this year – going from 184th to 181st despite heavy cutbacks in third-level funding. Its continued excellence in research saw two of its inventions selected as Ireland’s “Best Inventions” in 2011 - a device for treating lung cancer and a potentially revolutionary microchip technology.

University College Cork was further praised by The Sunday Times for a range of other achievements including:

The first Irish university campus to be awarded the Green Flag for an environmentally friendly campus in student-led innovation.
Introducing a programme to help Irish companies take advantage of opportunities in Asia with 23 students taking part in the programme run jointly with the Nanyang Business School in Singapore.
Winning an award for the operation and expansion of its Confucius Institute and its innovation in Irish education in Chinese language and culture teaching. Graduate employment rate at 93% is improving despite a poor jobs climate.
IGNITE programme is aimed specifically at graduates who wish to set up a new business. More work placement opportunities have been included in the university’s programmes and an increasing number of UCC students are studying abroad under the Erasmus Lifelong Learning Programme and other exchange partnerships.
UCC’s Access Programme has been an outstanding success story. In 2010/11, the Higher Education Authority (HEA) reported that UCC had the highest combined number of full-time mature students, students with a disability, traveller students and students from lower socio-economically backgrounds among the third level institutions in Ireland.

UCC previously won The Sunday Times University of the Year in 2003 and 2005.

Bloody Nipples

I read about the 5 star system at the time but I don't understand it tbh. UCC is ranked as a 5 star university and UL as a four star but UCD and Trinity are still ranked higher in the QS rankings but have no stars?

I know UCC has risen for several consecutive years while they have dropped but still based on the rankings, at this moment in time, they are considered the better universities. In this regard I don't get why we are 5 star and they are not.

Still not complaining though!

Eliot Rosewater

That's good news! The increase in UCC's place in the QS rankings has been a little remarkable. I think all rankings should be taken with a grain of salt (and large error margins) but a jump from 386 in 2006 to 181 this year is noteworthy. I wonder why this happened.

Re the QS stars: according to the website they are based upon factors not considered in the normal rankings. You shouldn't be shouting too much about UCC being the only 5-star university: UCC and UL are the only Irish universities given stars so far, and every university in the top 200 given a star rating were given 5 making it likely that TCD and UCD will get 5 stars too.

JeremyH

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

That's good news! The increase in UCC's place in the QS rankings has been a little remarkable. I think all rankings should be taken with a grain of salt (and large error margins) but a jump from 386 in 2006 to 181 this year is noteworthy. I wonder why this happened.

Re the QS stars: according to the website they are based upon factors not considered in the normal rankings. You shouldn't be shouting too much about UCC being the only 5-star university: UCC and UL are the only Irish universities given stars so far, and every university in the top 200 given a star rating were given 5 making it likely that TCD and UCD will get 5 stars too.

A lot of the jump was due to the fact that many published outputs (journals, books, conference papers) were not being credited to UCC because of inconsistent naming of the institution e.g. papers were being credited to "UCC", "University College Cork", "Tyndall Insitute", "National University of Ireland, Cork", "NUI Cork" and so on.

UCC, thus, wasn't getting full credit for all the work being done. An exercise was carried out to 'reclaim' these papers and UCC rose in the research rankings.

Also, the methodology used to rank the universities changed slightly with more weight being given to opinions of employers of graduates and the like.

Byron85

JeremyH wrote: »

A lot of the jump was due to the fact that many published outputs (journals, books, conference papers) were not being credited to UCC because of inconsistent naming of the institution e.g. papers were being credited to "UCC", "University College Cork", "Tyndall Insitute", "National University of Ireland, Cork", "NUI Cork" and so on.

UCC, thus, wasn't getting full credit for all the work being done. An exercise was carried out to 'reclaim' these papers and UCC rose in the research rankings.

Also, the methodology used to rank the universities changed slightly with more weight being given to opinions of employers of graduates and the like.

Interesting. I never heard about that at all. I knew the methodology changed sightly but I didn't know about the naming inconsistency.

Bannasidhe

Plus a consented effort was put into getting all academics and researchers to list everything - from articles and reviews to consultations and TV/ Radio appearances. Special forms were emailed...and emailed...and emailed again.