World ranked Australian unis go for gold

15 Aug 2012, 2:00 pm   -   Source: The Conversation

The Conversation

By Bella Counihan, The Conversation

More Australian universities are now in the top 100 ranked universities in the world, according to the Academic Ranking of World Universities released today.

Five Australian universities – University of Melbourne, the Australian National University (ANU), University of Queensland (UQ), University of Sydney, and the University of Western Australia (UWA) – all made it into the top 100, compared with four last year.

Melbourne University topped the list of Australian universities. It was ranked 57, up three places from last year. ANU came a close second to Melbourne at 64 (up 6 places), while UWA made it into the top 100 for the first time at 67.

American and British universities still dominated the top 10 with Harvard University coming in at number one. Chinese universities are rising in the rankings – in 2005 China had only 8 universities in the top 500 but this year has 28.

The annual rankings are based on a number of indicators including research citations, the number of articles published and Nobel Prize winning staff or alumni.

Melbourne University’s Professor of Higher Education Simon Marginson said Australia’s improved result was likely a delayed response to extra funding and policy changes made three or four years ago, which coincided with the peak of the international student market in Australia.

Australia’s moves up the rankings were “quite significant” said Marginson, particularly the entry of UWA into the top 100. UWA’s Life Sciences subject was also the highest ranked of any discipline in Australia. But Marginson warned these gains could stagnate:

“Because the international [student] market is headed down and with no more increases in government funding in the pipeline, we’ll be struggling to hold our current position over the next two, to three years… This could be the peak.”

UWA’s Vice-Chancellor Paul Johnson said his university’s improvement was the result of a long-term investment strategy, started under his predecessor Professor Alan Robson.

“[Olympic] athletes don’t get up one day and say ‘I think I’ll try and win an Olympic medal’. They have a plan, their coaches have a plan, they train very hard to get there… It’s the same for universities,” Professor Johnson said.

But, Professor Johnson noted, Australian universities' successes were much less likely to attract public attention:

“Winning the hundred metres is like getting an article published in Nature… but 9.6 seconds on the running track is great TV; four years work in a laboratory by a team of 28 researchers is not.”

The Conversation

The Conversation

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