University College Cork (UCC)

Founded in 1845, UCC is one of three Queen's Colleges in Cork, Galway and Belfast University buildings of historical and cultural importance --the Main Quadrangle, The Honan Chapel, The Glucksman Gallery. UCC ranked in top 2% of universities worldwide, based on the quality of its research output and peer esteem. UCC - Ireland's first Five-Star university (QS Stars 2011).UCC voted Best University in Ireland by The Sunday Times three times in the past decade, the only Irish university to have won this accolade. UCC - first university in the world to be awarded the international Green Flag for environmental friendliness in 2010. UCC - the world's first third-level institution to be awarded the ISO 50001 standard in energy management.UCC --Third in world's universities for environment-friendly university management (Universitas Indonesia Greenmetric World University Ranking system 2013).

UCC was established in 1845 as one of three Queen’s Colleges at Cork, Galway and Belfast. These new colleges were founded in the reign of Queen Victoria, and named after her. Queen's College, Cork (QCC) was established to provide access to higher education in the Irish province of Munster. The site chosen for the new college was dramatic and picturesque, on the edge of a limestone bluff overlooking the River Lee. On the 7th of November, 1849, QCC opened its doors to a small group of 115 students after a glittering inaugural ceremony in the Aula Maxima (Great Hall), which is still the symbolic and ceremonial heart of the University.

From 1850, QCC was part of the Queen's University of Ireland and, from the 1880s, of the Royal University of Ireland. By the beginning the twentieth century however, it was clear that higher education in Ireland required a new arrangement to permit the next stages of development. That change came in 1908 through the National University of Ireland (NUI), of which the former QCC, now University College Cork (UCC) is a founding member. Since 1908, UCC has grown - from 115 students to over 20,000, from one building to dozens, from less than 20 staff to more than 1,600 today. Since 1997, we have become a university in our own right within the NUI, but we retain the UCC name as part of our heritage of learning since 1845.

  

UCC has 20,000 full-time students.14,000 undergraduate students and 4,000 Masters and PhD students. UCC  has over 3,000 international students representing 100-plus countries worldwide. UCC has 2,000 part-time students in Adult Continuing Education.93% of undergraduates of UCC go on to employment or further education.UCC is one of the larger employers in the region with 2,800 people.

Six Early Start options for fall and full-year students. Full-year students can earn a diploma in Irish Traditional Music, certificate in Irish Studies or diploma in European Common Law.Spring semester students can earn a certificate in Political Issues in Ireland Today.Internships involving research appropriate to its field that culminates in a faculty-supervised academic project.UCC offers over 120 degree and professional programmes in the Humanities, Business, Law, Architecture, Science, Food and Nutritional Sciences, Medicine, Dentistry, Pharmacy, Nursing and the Clinical Therapies.

 
First professor of Mathematics at UCC was George Boole (1815-64) famous for his Boolean Algebra which is at the basis of digital computing systems. UCC research income for the past five years over €401 million. Annual research income from the European Commission/FP7 sources reached €10.6 million, a 40% increase since 2008/2009. Income from new awards from EU was €13.1 million, a 170% increase since 2008/2009. UCC - most successful university in Ireland for EU FP7 research grants at 23.7%. Non-exchequer research funding = 25% of UCC's research income, up from 17% in 2009/2011. From 2007-2012 number of citations per journal publication grew by 30%. 62% of Ireland's most highly-cited researchers are from UCC.UCC researchers collaborate with close to 700 of the world's top universities across 110 countries.

With the NUI came conferring ceremonies held in UCC for the first time (previously they were all held in Dublin). These are days of ceremony and celebration, connecting our graduates and their families to the great tradition of European scholarship that goes back a thousand years.
Student superstition has it that to cross the Quad before graduation, or even to set foot on the grass, is to risk bad luck and failure in exams. On conferring days, graduates gather to cross the Quad together, and get their photograph taken there.