MaREI Competitors

DCU is a young, dynamic and ambitious university with a distinctive mission to transform lives and societies through education, research and innovation. Since admitting its first students in 1980, DCU has grown in both student numbers and size and is now a multi campus environment Glasnevin, located just north of Dublin city. In the last nine years, DCU has twice been named Sunday Times ‘University of the Year’. DCU is recognised nationally and internationally as a centre of academic excellence with over 16000 students. Over 50,000 students have graduated from DCU and are now playing significant roles in enterprise and business globally. DCU is Ireland’s most innovative university, and in 2016 will deliver more than 200 programmes to over 16,000 students across its five faculties – Humanities and Social Sciences, Science and Health, Engineering and Computing, DCU Business School and the DCU Institute of Education. DCU’s excellence is recognised internationally and it is regularly featured among the world’s top young universities. In the 2016 QS Top 50 Under 50 league table of the top young universities in the world, DCU’s ranking moved up two places to 44th in the world. It is the only Irish university to feature in these rankings which are designed to emphasise the potential and excellence of universities without decades or centuries of established reputation.

Trinity College Dublin is recognised internationally as Ireland's premier university and is ranked joint 75th in the world (QS World University Rankings, 2024). In the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, Trinity is ranked 134th globally.

UCC was established in 1845 as one of three Queen’s Colleges at Cork, Galway and Belfast. These new colleges were founded in the reign of Queen Victoria and named after her. Queen's College, Cork (QCC) was established to provide access to higher education in the Irish province of Munster. The site chosen for the new college was dramatic and picturesque, on the edge of a limestone bluff overlooking the River Lee. On the 7th of November, 1849, QCC opened its doors to a small group of 115 students after a glittering inaugural ceremony in the Aula Maxima (Great Hall), which is still the symbolic and ceremonial heart of the University. From 1850, QCC was part of the Queen's University of Ireland and, from the 1880s, of the Royal University of Ireland. By the beginning the twentieth century, however, it was clear that higher education in Ireland required a new arrangement to permit the next stages of development. That change came in 1908 through the National University of Ireland (NUI), of which the former QCC, now University College Cork (UCC) is a founding member. Since 1908, UCC has grown from 115 students to over 20,000, from one building to dozens, from less than 20 staff to more than 1,600 today. Since 1997, we have become a university in our own right within the NUI, but we retain the UCC name as part of our heritage of learning since 1845.