University College Cork, popularly known as UCC, is classified as the top 2% university globally. The 175 years old University is supposed to have the highest postgraduate and undergraduate employment rate in Ireland, of 95% and 94%, sequentially. The University has over 21000 undergraduate students currently, out of which some 3000 students come from over 100 nations, making it a top place for dynamic international learning.

  • University College Cork offers over 70 undergraduate programs, with most of them being related to social science, medicals, and business law.
  • The University also teaches approximately 140 postgraduate courses over its four different campuses.
  • UCC also has a good graduate recruitment facility and career development services.
  • In fact UCC’s mission is to prepare their students in such a way that they can get placement opportunities in top companies in Ireland and on a global scale.

University College Cork World Ranking Highlights

Ranking Agency Ranking- 2020 Ranking- 2021
Times Higher Education #301-#350 #310-#350
QS #310 #286
US News - #437
CWUR #480 #509
Webo-metrics - #359

University College Cork QS Ranking 2021

Global Ranking: #286

University College Cork programs are renowned has also been ranked 1st in the world for reliable production and consumption. The University is unrivalled in its academic programs' quality and merges an enriching tradition and research.

According to the rankings by QS, UCC has considerably dropped its ranks in the last eight years. From a prestigious global position of #190 in 2012, it has come down to #286. This might happen because the QS uses several ranking parameters to assess a college.

Listed below are all of those parameters and scores obtained by UCC in these parameters in 2021:

Criteria Scores Weightage
Academic Reputation 28.6 40%
Employer Reputation 31.3 10%
Faculty : Student 42.8 20%
Citations per Faculty 23.4 20%
International Staffs 91.9 5%
International Students 46.4 5%

After judging the above parameters, the QS has given UCC an overall score of 34.9.

University College Cork Graduate Employability Ranking 2021

Apart from these above criteria, the QS also uses other parameters to evaluate a University for its Graduate Employability Ranking. The Employability ranking is one significant factor that the students see before applying to any college. The Graduate Employability Ranking of UCC has been consistently promoting since 2018, and it has asphalted its way from #500 positions in 2018 to #250-#300 position currently.

Mentioned below are all of the criteria and scores obtained by UCC for the Graduate Employability Ranking:

Parameters Scored Obtained
Employer Reputation 30.4
Alumni Outcome 26
Overall Scores 27.6-32.2

University College Cork Times Higher Education Ranking 2021

Global Ranking: #301-#350

Times Higher Ranking has ranked UCC as the 21st globally and 1st in Ireland in inaugural impact rankings for sustainable, social, and economic impact. THE has furthermore marked UCC as the top 50 universities in Europe for excellence in teaching. UCC is also deemed one of Ireland's best research universities, with a total R&D of over 100 million euros.

Mentioned below are the criteria used by Times Higher Education for marking UCC, along with the scores obtained by UCC:

Parameters Scores
Teaching 23.7
Research 23.5
Citations 82.9
Industry Income 44.8
International Outlook 82.5

University College Cork CWUR Ranking 2021

Global Ranking: #509

Unlike other ranking agencies, CWUR has ranked UCC far behind at 509th position out of 2000 international colleges, despite having scored 74.1. UCC has lost ranks in the past couple of years, which has come down from #473 positions in 2018 to #509.

Furthermore, CWUR has ranked UCC at 888th position for Alumni Employment Ranking, whereas the QS has ranked the university at #250-#300 position for the same. Moreover, where UCC is one of the best colleges in Ireland for research, CWUR has ranked the university at 480th position for Research Performance Result.

However, CWUR still marks UCC as the 3rd best college at the national level.

Sections Ranks Obtained
Quality of Education Ranking -
Alumni Employment Ranking 888
Quality of Faculty Ranking -
Research Performance Ranking 480
World Rank 509
National Rank 3
Overall Score 74.1

University College Cork US News Ranking 2021

Global Ranking: #437

The US news ranked UCC at 437th position globally out of 1500+ universities from over 80 countries. US News also states that UCC has a staff member of 562 solely for research purposes; this again shows how research intensive the university is.

The US News uses 13 indicators to calculate the global rankings of universities, mentioned below are all the factors and scores obtained by UCC in these factors.

Parameters Ranks Weightage
Global research reputation #691 12.5%
Regional research reputation #444 12.5%
Publications #493 10%
Books #194 2.5%
Conferences #481 2.5%
Normalized citation impact #292 10%
Total citations #401 7.5%
Number of publications that are among the 10% most cited #437 12.5%
Percentage of total publications that are among the 10% most cited #468 10%
International collaboration - relative to country #887 5%
International collaboration #272 5%
Number of highly cited papers that are among the top 1% most cited #354 5%
Percentage of highly cited papers that are among the top 1% most cited #292 5%

The US News have given UCC an overall score of 52.8.

University College Cork National Ranking 2021

Ranking Agencies Ranks
The QS Ranking (2021) #5
CWUR(2021) #3
US News Ranking (2021) #3
Webometrics (2020) #3

University College Cork Subject Specific Rankings 2021

Subjects QS (2020) THE (2021) US News (2021)
Agriculture & Life Science #207 #176-#200 #93
Biology & Biochemistry #201-#250 #176-#200 #260
Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology #201-#250 #176-#200 #105
Engineering & Technology #260 N/A #483

Why choose University College Cork?

UCC has also won various awards, including STARS Gold Award, Award for gender equality in higher education, HR excellence in research, the world’s first green campus award, and many more.After seeing the earlier ranking, we can conclude that UCC is a fair college for studying life science and biology subjects. UCC as a whole is an excellent university at the national level, with an average national ranking of #3 by most of the ranking agencies. UCC is also the first university in the world with an international green flag for environmental friendliness.