University College Dublin is one of Europe's leading research-intensive universities, where a comprehensive suite of strong disciplines forms the foundation of high-quality interdisciplinary research, scholarship and innovation. UCD is the national leader in research funding, attracting quality investment that has helped the university to establish a reputation as a world-class destination for leading researchers. UCD is ranked within the top 1% of higher education institutions worldwide.
UCD is the largest University in Ireland:
• over 1500 academic staff across a range of disciplines;
• over 1550 PhD students and > 3400 Masters students, producing 22% of Irelands PhD graduates each
year;
• over 33000 students
UCD has the highest number of graduate research students of any University in Ireland, with a rich
offering of postgraduate programmes supported by dedicated Graduate Schools;
UCD runs overseas programmes in partnership with leading international universities and
education providers in China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Spain, and Sri Lanka, with over
5500 students on overseas campuses;
UCD is home to over 7000 international students from over 130 countries;
UCD is ranked 168th in the QS Rankings; ranking in the top 200 universities worldwide in
prestigious Times Higher Education World University and ranked 66 th in Europe;
The number of funded research projects has grown rapidly during the last few years, peaking at
672 in 2013/14. The highest value of funding comes from national agencies such as Science
Foundation Ireland, and from the European Commission. UCD has won €525 million in research
contracts over the last 5 years;
∙ UCD’s Impact rating in publications has increased to 63% above the World average from 2004-
2014, with the number of publications more than doubling in the same period; UCD plays a leading role in pioneering knowledge transfer (Nova 2003-2016), with:
• over € 8 million earned in commercialisation income;
• over € 200 in equity funding raised by NovaUCD companies;
• over 40 new UCD spin-outs incorporated;
• over 675 invention disclosures;
• over 155 Licence Agreements
• over 460 Patent applications;
UCD’s major research themes are:
- Energy and Environment
- Agri-Food o Culture, Economy and Society
- Health
- ICT
UCD has a major contractual track record in successive EU Framework Programmes:
- UCD secured 219 EU FP7 contracts, with a 21.7% success rate in EU FP7 participation;
- UCD has secured 126 contracts in Horizon 2020 to date;
- UCD has secured 22 ERC full awards, plus 6 associated ERC Proof of Concept awards.
School of Computer Science: Research is a core activity of the UCD School of Computer Science
and is carried out by 40+ academic staff, 30+ postdoctoral researchers and 90+ research
postgraduates who contribute to UCD’s high impact rating in publications (59% above the World
average from 2004-2014, with the number of publications more than doubling in the same period).
School staff are involved in a number of significant nationally-funded research centres, the largest of
which are Insight Centre for Data Analytics (www.insight‐centre.org) and Lero - the Irish Software Research Centre (www.lero.ie). UCD plays a leading role in pioneering knowledge transfer and a
number of successful spin-out companies have been developed within the School, including
Logentries, which was acquired by US company Rapid7 for $68M. The School of Computer Science
was the lead institution for 3 EU FP7 People Programmes (VGI_SLAM; CARMESH; MESHTv) and a
partner in one other project (IGIT). Additionally, the School of Computer Science led 2 EU FP7 ICT
projects (RUBICON; PROSECCO) and was a partner in 7 (CARMEN; COCONUT; ENGRAVE;
FIERCER; HOBNET; COBWEB; WHIM). Currently the School is coordinating a H2020 MSCA ITN
(TEAM), a DG-CONNECT (AHA) and is a partner on Horizon 2020 projects (including ASGARD;
BIG O) and a SESAR Joint Technology Initiative (AURORA)