Home › Research sites▻Institutional Research Office▻University Rankings▻QS Rankings▻QS Overall Rankings

QS Overall Rankings

QS Overall Rankings

The QS World University Rankings is an annual publication of university rankings by Quacquarelli Symonds(QS).  In 2020, the QS published their 17th edition of the QS World University Ranking Results 2020/21. NUI Galway achieved its highest rank ever in this edition of the ranking achieving a rank of 238th in the world.
Previously known as THE-QS World University Rankings, the publisher had collaborated with Times Higher Education magazine (THE) to publish its international league tables from 2004 to 2009 before both started to announce their own versions. QS then chose to still use the pre-existing methodology while THE adopted a new one. 

The QS World University Rankings ranked over 1000 universities from over 80 countries.  The rankings are based on opinions of over 100,000 individuals in the higher education space regarding teaching and research quality at the world’s universities and almost 50,000 employer responses as well as 13 million research papers and 66 million citations. The QS introduced faculty area normalisation in 2015 to ensure that institutions specialising in Life Sciences and Natural Sciences were not unduly advantaged. See more about the QS Methodology used in the rankings here. 

Over the years, NUI Galway has steadily risen in the QS World University Ranking and in 2017, reached a rank into the top 250 band, reaching a rank of 243 and made it to the top 1%  of the universities in the world. The 2018/19 QS Ranking results reflected poorly for Irish Universities and NUI Galway has fallen slightly to a rank of 260 and 259 in the rankings published in 2019. However once again in 2020 NUI Galway took a huge leap of 21 places to a rank of 238 in the rankings published in QS World University Ranking Results 2020/21. Within the World Ranking sector, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is ranked first while Stanford University lies second, Harvard University lies 3rd and the University of Oxford lies in 4th position.

NUI Galway's Ranking result 2011-2020.

QS Ranking Results 2011-2020

QS Rankings

NUI Galway jumped 21 places in the QS (Quacquarelli Symonds) 2020 World University Ranking, reaching it's highest rank ever of 238th in the world,  published 10th June 2020. This ranking confirms its position among the world’s elite educational institutions, placing it in the top 1% of universities in the world. Since 2014, NUI Galway has moved up 42 places, having improved its ranking in 8 of the previous 9 years. NUI Galway continues to perform strongly in its International scores, reflecting the welcoming and vibrant population of Galway City. In particular, this year, NUI Galway has improved substantively with regard to its academic and employer reputation internationally. 

Over the years, NUI Galway has steadily risen in the QS World University Ranking and in 2017, reached a rank of 243 and made it to the top 1%  of the universities in the world.   The 2018/19 QS Ranking results reflected poorly for Irish Universities and NUI Galway has fallen slightly to a rank of 260, however, the 2019/20, QS Ranking Results showed NUI Galway to have risen one place to 259th position. Within the World Ranking sector, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is ranked first while Stanford University lies second, Harvard University lies 3rd and the University of Oxford lies in 4th position.

Table 1:See Ranking Results in Irish Universities below

QS Irish Universities Rank 2020

Table 2: See Top 20 Ranked Institutions in the World

QS 2020 World 20 Ranked Unis

QS Metrics

 The QS overall university ranking uses six metrics in total.

Two of the metrics (Academic Reputation and Employer Reputation) are based on surveys conducted by the QS. These surveys are carried out on a population of over 100,000  academics and almost 50,000 employers.  See more details on how the QS calculates these surveys and the other core metrics used below.

Table 2: The QS Rankings Metrics

QS Weighting



More on NUI Galway's scoring in the QS World Ranking

 

See more details on NUI Galway's scoring in the QS World Ranking