UCD ranked in Top 20 globally for Agricultural Sciences; 5th in Europe
By Dáire Brady | Nov 9 2018
According to statistics released by leading editorial U.S. News, University College Dublin holds a tied 19th place with the University of Queensland, Australia, ranked first in the subject of agricultural science, out of a total of over 250 universities studied. Achieving 75.1 points out of a possible 100, it lies just ahead of the State University of Campinas, São Paulo, and was narrowly overtaken by the Michigan State University, which is placed in 18th place. Clinching 1st place was the world-renowned Wageningen University and Research Centre, located in the Netherlands, achieving the highest score possible of 100 points. This was followed closely by University of California Davis, University of Massachusetts Amherst, China Agricultural University and Cornell University.Commenting on Twitter, Professor Alex Evans, Head of the School of Agriculture and Food Science and Dean of Agriculture in UCD, stated that it was a “very strong ranking at 19 by UCD in Agricultural Science”, congratulating those involved. University College Cork was the only other Irish 3rd level institution to make the rankings for agricultural science. It also scored quite highly at 60.4, it currently holds a tied 72nd place with the University of Helsinki, Finland. Following the introduction of their new Bachelor of Agricultural Science, in which the first year will enrol in 2019, it will prove interesting to see whether UCC will see an increase in their position on the ranking in the coming year. The new course, in collaboration with Teagasc, brings the number of level 8 agricultural science undergraduate programmes nationwide to 13. This follows the recent introduction of Letterkenny IT’s Bachelor of Agricultural Science degree. Several of UCD’s Agricultural Science Erasmus exchange partners were also ranked on the survey. Both UC Davis and Cornell placed within the top 5, while Purdue, Michigan State, Iowa State, Queensland, Texas A&M and Illinois all ranked within the top 40. It is also noted that UCD placed within the top three Universities globally with the most highly cited papers among academic researchers.