University College Dublin (UCD) is one of Europe’s leading research-intensive universities where undergraduate education, postgraduate masters and PhD training, research, innovation and community engagement form a dynamic continuum of activity. The university was established in 1854 by John Henry Newman whose classic work The Idea of a University is one of the most enduring texts on the value of higher education and a source of inspiration for UCD’s current educational philosophy.
UCD has been a major contributor to the making of modern Ireland. Many UCD students and staff participated in the struggle for Irish independence and the university has produced three Irish Presidents, almost half of the country’s Taoisigh (Prime Ministers) in addition to generations of Irish business, professional, cultural and sporting leaders including James Joyce, Flann O’Brien, Tony O’Reilly and Peter Sutherland.
UCD is Ireland’s most international university with 8,500 international students from more than 130 countries. UCD is also one of Ireland’s largest universities with more than 33,300 students. UCD actively promotes university life as a journey of academic and personal discovery through its highly innovative and flexible UCD Horizons undergraduate curriculum. UCD is Ireland’s leader in postgraduate education with approximately 9,900 graduate students and more than 1,600 PhD students. Over 50% of UCD undergraduates progress to postgraduate studies.
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. As Ireland's largest university, with its great strength and diversity of disciplines, UCD embraces its role to contribute to the flourishing of Ireland, Europe and the wider world. The University's Strategy 2020-2024 Rising to the Future outlines the objectives and major strategic initiatives set in place in order to accomplish UCD's mission and vision for this era by pursuing four strategic themes: Creating a Sustainable Global Society; Transforming through Digital Technology; Building a Healthy World; and Empowering Humanity. These strategic themes will shape research, teaching and learning and the way UCD behaves and functions as a community and as an institution.
The University delivers research and innovation at scale and in areas of national and global significance by prioritising excellence and impact, developing leadership and fostering an enabling research and innovation ecosystem in which our researchers are supported to deliver across the four strategic themes. UCD’s international academic community is addressing our world’s most pressing challenges on a global scale, through our world class research institutes, centres and programmes, and through high impact research collaborations with over 5,000 institutions worldwide.
UCD has one of Ireland’s most successful technology transfer and incubator units, NovaUCD, which supports both companies spinning out from the university’s research programmes and external start-ups wishing to avail of the university’s pool of expertise and technologies.
The international standing of UCD has increased rapidly in recent years and the university is currently ranked within the top 1% of institutions world-wide by the Times Higher Education rankings. The university has recently partnered with Beijing University of Technology (BJUT) to establish the first international university in the Chinese capital. UCD also runs overseas programmes in partnership with leading international universities and private higher education providers in China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, and Spain.
The main campus is located on a beautiful leafy 133-hectare parkland setting close to Dublin’s city centre, which provides a mix of academic facilities, research institutes, libraries and archival collections, enterprise space, student villages, and sports and recreational facilities.
Through its membership of U21, UCD provides its students and staff with an exciting and innovative range of opportunities for collaboration at every level with some of the world’s leading universities.