Trinity’s success was due largely to it attracting the highest calibre of entrants academically, which the league table rewards above all else. But despite this, its students only got the republic’s third highest grades when graduating.

University College Cork had the best graduate grades, with 71% getting a first or a 2:1 last year compared to Trinity’s 67%. But this was not sufficient for it to retain second place this year as the resurgent University College Dublin overtook it.

NUI, Maynooth, in Co Kildare, was the best in terms of competitive research won per academic, its 249 academics attracting Euros 128,657 each in research funding. University College Cork was next best for research, closely followed by Trinity and University College Dublin. Cork Institute of Technology was the best in its sector for research but, in this category, the universities hugely outshone the institutes.

Employment is consistently high among graduates, with little difference between the seven universities or 14 institutes of technology included in our league table. The best for employment was Waterford IT followed by NUI, Maynooth, where almost 100% of graduates were working or in further education nine months after leaving. The worst for jobs were Letterkenny Institute of Technology, hampered by its peripheral Donegal location, and Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art Design and Technology, due to the precarious nature of jobs in the creative sector.

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• The Times University Guide table

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The league table highlights disparities in staffing that can be an important factor in the standard of teaching and academic support. The best student-to-staff ratio is at Dublin Institute of Technology where there is one lecturer per 11 students, while the worst is in NUI, Maynooth, where the 18:1 ratio may be explained by the institution’s rapid expansion.

Good staffing probably also helped Dublin Institute of Technology record the republic’s best completion rate, with just 7% failing to graduate. The poorest completion was at Letterkenny Institute of Technology, where 27% did not gain a degree. Letterkenny has Ireland’s best record for bringing in students from poorer economic backgrounds, however, a factor which affects its performance and helped it fall to last place in this year’s table.

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