Dublin City University rises to 410th in the world in 2026 QS rankings
Dublin City University has been ranked 410th in the new QS World University Rankings, released today by global higher education analyst QS Quacquarelli Symonds.
The QS World University Rankings are compiled in partnership with tens of thousands of higher education institutions. They incorporate datapoints from 16.4 million academic papers as well as the views of more than 151,000 academics and 101,038 employers.
The university has seen a rise in metrics including academic reputation, employer reputation, our faculty/student ratio and citations, which have doubled.
Speaking about the results, President of DCU, Prof Dáire Keogh said
“It is gratifying to see the continued strength of DCU’s performance in the international Higher Education rankings. The University’s progress reflects our determined focus on providing a transformative student experience, advancing our research goals and ensuring DCU’s partnerships deliver real impact.”
We have advanced in the rankings in the context of Higher Education’s highly competitive international landscape, as well as the acknowledged underfunding of the Irish university sector. Our achievements are a credit to the dedication of the entire DCU staff community.”
Vice President for Research at DCU, Prof John Doyle said
“These are very welcome results, in an international context where many countries are significantly out-spending Ireland on Research and Innovation, as Ibec have recently pointed out. DCU’s international academic reputation score has almost doubled in the past 12 months, and the impact of our work on international research debates has more than doubled.
Congratulations to all our colleagues who made this possible.”
Changes to the QS Rankings for 2026
This edition of the QS World University Rankings has seen the addition of International Student Diversity introduced as an unweighted indicator. It looks at the ratio of international students to overall students as well as the diversity of nationalities that those students are from. It aims to measure how successful the institution is at attracting students from a wide range of different locations and backgrounds.
QS has also expanded its research mappings, increasing the number of institutions considered in its research indicators by over 65%, now covering over 8,000 from the Scopus database. This broader global coverage allows them to provide more accurate and inclusive results.
topuniversities.com/qs-world-university-rankings
THE Impact Rankings
Separate to the QS World University Rankings, the Times Higher Education (THE) University Impact Rankings for 2025 were released yesterday. Dublin City University has maintained its ranking between 101 and 200th in the world.
DCU ranks 73rd in the world for UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) No Poverty and 76th for Reduced Inequalities.
timeshighereducation.com/impactrankings