University of Galway

General Description

The University of Galway was established by the Colleges (Ireland) Act in 1845 and was first known as Queens College Galway, it became National University of Ireland Galway in 1997 and was renamed as University of Galway in 2022. The University of Galway has earned national and international recognition as a research‐led university with a commitment to top‐quality teaching. With around 19,000 students and 2,700 staff, the University of Galway has a distinguished reputation for teaching and research excellence. The University has a growing international profile for its research in four research pillars: “Innovation for Health, Creativity, Culture & Society, Sustainable & Resilient Environments: Earth & Ocean, Transformative Data & AI”. At Galway, the identification of priority research areas and subsequent investments in these areas have enabled the University to develop a critical mass of expertise which has led to significant success in securing competitive research funding, nationally and internationally, to support our community. In 2024, the University income exceeded €421 million, of which over €87.5 million was from competitive internal and external research funding. The University of Galway places a strong focus on providing a supportive environment for researchers to continue their professional development. This is evidenced by the University having maintained the coveted European Commission “HR Excellence in Research Award” since 2013. In 2019, the University of Galway became a University of Sanctuary implementing a series of strategies to make it a more inclusive and equitable campus for all society by providing access to higher education opportunities in a supportive environment. The University of Galway is committed to the further development and implementation of responsible, fair and transparent research assessment processes and the adoption of the principles of responsible metrics. The University of Galway statement on responsible metrics for the assessment of research is available at https://www.universityofgalway.ie/researchcommunityportal/responsible-metrics/.

International Awards

In the period 2021 to date, the University of Galway received over 206 awards from EC research funding programmes; Horizon Europe, Interreg, Life, and Erasmus. These research funding awards have a combined budget in excess of €100million. Among these are 114 Horizon Europe funded research projects. Before this, the university has been involved in 203 H2020 funded projects as coordinator or partner. To date in the Horizon Europe Marie Skłodowska‐Curie programme, the University of Galway has been awarded 13 MSCA PF, 4 MSCA COFUND, 8 MSCA DN as coordinator, 7 MSCA DN and 2 MSCA SE as partner. The University of Galway was also very successful in the previous H2020 Marie Skłodowska‐Curie programme where it was awarded 30 MSCA‐IF, 10 MSCA‐ITN, 4 MSCA‐RISE and 2 MSCA‐COFUND as coordinator. The University of Galway is active in numerous other international non‐EU funding programmes and has secured research funding from agencies such as the National Science Foundation (US), the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (US), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (US), the Royal Society (UK) and Wellcome (UK).

Rankings

University of Galway is ranked in the top 2% in the world by QS World University Rankings. The 2026 QS World University Rankings place the University at number 284 in the world. The World University Rankings 2026, published by Times Higher Education (THE), places the University of Galway within the 351‐400 ranking worldwide. This ranking of the world’s top universities is based on 13 separate performance indicators covering all of the core mission areas of a world class university: teaching, research, citations, international outlook and industry income. The university is ranked number 1 in Ireland (for four years in a row) and within the top 3 universities in the EU for impact. The University is ranked number 1 in Ireland and number 17 globally for Sustainable Development – Responsible Consumption and Production.