Over the past 15 years, UCD has hosted more Irish Aid fellows than any other institution - making up more than 300 alumni across a wide range of disciplines, including agriculture, development, business, education and public health.

Belfield, the university’s spacious campus on the edge of Dublin, became its main home in the 1960s, just over a century after its founding. Thus, unlike many Irish campuses, it is characterised by modern architecture throughout. At its heart are the Newman Building, the James Joyce Library and the UCD lake, complete with resident swans and fountains in the centre. Over recent years several hi-tech new buildings have been added and UCD has adopted a new logo as it seeks to position itself as “one of Europe’s leading research-intensive universities”.

UCD’s Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School is located approximately two miles away from the main campus in the coastal town of Blackrock. It occupies a 19th century red-brick building (formerly used as a teacher-training college) as well as several newer additions. Since 2009, it has hosted students supported by Irish Aid’s IDEAS Programme for Vietnam.

Overall, UCD is home to 25,000 students - almost 5,000 of them international students. In early 2011, UCD opened a dedicated space for the promotion of internationalisation on the Belfield campus - the ‘Global Lounge’. It has become a popular hang out for Irish and International students alike.

On the latest world university rankings, UCD is placed 159th by Times Higher Education and 134th by QS.

Over the last decade, Irish Aid has sponsored students from all of its priority countries to study at UCD.

Zambia leads the list with over 50 fellows attending the college during that time, more than half of whom studied programmes in the field of teaching and education.

Amongst all fellowship alumni, Development Studies and Rural Development were the most commonly undertaken courses, though many other subjects have featured strongly.