Australia's Best Universities

The Good Oil

Ranking the world's universities is a big job, and a difficult one. It's impossible to say how far the concept is meaningful. Everyone would agree that some universities are better than others, but how do we measure the differences?

Three organisations have put their hands up to do the job:

ARWU. Source: China. The first was Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China, which only began the exercise in 2003. Several international conferences and name changes later, these ratings are now conducted under the rubric of the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU).
THE World University Rankings. Source: UK. In 2004 The Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) in the United Kingdom conducted a parallel exercise. It was originally known as the THES rankings, then the QS/THES rankings when it joined with some mob called Quacquarelli Symonds. For reasons that remain unclear, The Times Higher Education Supplement ditched Quacquarelli Symonds in 2009 and started production on a third rating system, this time in conjunction with Thomson Reuters. This is now known as the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings.
QS Topuniversities. Source: UK. After the split from THE, Quacquarelli Symonds continued the ratings as QS Topuniversities.

You would think that some organisation in the USA would get into the world-ranking market, but we suspect that the idea that there might be universities of world-class stature outside the USA is so alien to the American mind, that they simply assume such an index would be redundant: just list all the universities in the USA. What others are there?

These ranking systems are the best we have, for all their defects. You can read a statistical comparison of the two here, and in this article in the Wikipedia. A more partisan and deranged-but nonetheless interesting-Wikipedia article can be found here.

As Aussies, we want to know where our universities stand. If you can't find your Aussie university here, you might want to rethink your educational choice. The lists rarely agree.

Updated Added rankings for 2012.

The ARWU rankings

The ARWU ranks the top 500 or so of the world's universities. In their analysis, Australia does surprisingly well: with a tiny 1.5% of global GDP and a minuscule 0.3% of global population, it has 3.8% of the world's top 500 universities. The table below shows the number of universities in the top 500, by country. There do seem to be a lot of Chinese universities, though, don't there?

Country	No. in top 500
United States	150
China	42
United Kingdom	38
Germany	37
Canada	22
Japan	21
France	20
Italy	20
Australia	19
Netherlands	13
Spain	11
Sweden	11
South Korea	10
30 other countries	86
Number of universitiies in the ARWU top 500, by country.

We've read both a defence and critique of ARWU's methodology in one of our favourite journals, Scientometrics¹. You can find a further critique by Richard Holmes of the University of Malaysia in the Asian Journal of University Education. He also has some comments about Australian universities at a blog. Well worth reading.

The ARWU does not supply a specific rank after number 100, only a grouping. Admittedly, the groupings are inconsistent from year to year, but what the hey.

University	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012
University of Melbourne	79	73	75	62	60	57
Australian National University	57	59	59	59	70	64
University of Queensland	102-150	101-151	101-151	101-150	86	90
University of Sydney	102-150	97	94	92	96	93
University of Western Australia	102-150	101-151	101-151	101-150	102-150	96
Monash University	203-304	201-302	201-302	151-200	151-200	101-150
University of New South Wales	151-202	152-200	152-200	151-200	151-200	101-150
Macquarie University	202-304	201-302	201-302	201-300	201-300	201-300
University of Adelaide	151-202	201-302	201-302	201-300	201-300	201-300
Flinders University of South Australia	305-402	303-401	303-401	301-400	301-400	301-400
James Cook University	403-510	303-401	402-501	301-400	301-400	301-400
University of Newcastle	305-402	303-401	303-401	301-400	301-400	301-400
University of Tasmania	403-510	303-401	303-401	401-500	301-400	301-400
University of Wollongong	403-510	303-401	303-401	301-400	401-500	301-400
Swinburne University of Technology	–	–	402-501	401-500	401-500	301-400
Griffith University	–	–	–	–	401-500	301-400
Curtin University of Technology	–	–	402-501	401-500	401-500	401-500
La Trobe University	403-510	402-503	402-501	401-500	401-500	401-500
University of Technology, Sydney	–	–	–	–	401-500	401-500
Murdoch University	403-510	–	–	–	–	–
University of New England	403-510	–	–	–	–	–
The ARWU ranking of Australian universities.

The QS Topuniversities rankings

In 2011 QS Topuniversities described itself as the most trusted university ranking in the world. How that accolade was achieved, we know not. In 2012 they downgraded that to a more modest among the most trusted university rankings available.

There is no doubt that it's own website is No 1 for confusion. To add to that, QS Topuniversities has created a parallel ranking system in competition to itself called QS Stars. We have no idea what that means, and – from their own incoherent explanation – neither do they. We suspect it is a pet project of some senior executive's mistress, who wants to see their Swiss finishing school listed as a top university.

In 2007 QS Topuniversities ranked the top 200 of the world's universities, but expanded its purview so that by 2012 it ranked 700. QS Topuniversities ranks the Australian universities much, much higher than ARWU does. We are more than dubious.

The table below lists every Australian university that has appeared in any of their rankings.

We haven't seen anyone defend the QS Topuniversities rankings in any scholarly journal: for that you have to go to this lunatic's email.

University	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012
Australian National University	16	16	17	20	26	24
University of Melbourne	27	38	=36	38	31	36
University of Sydney	31	37	=36	37	38	39
University of Queensland	33	43	41	43	48	46
University of New South Wales	44	45	47	46	49	52
Monash University	43	47	45	61	60	61
University of Western Australia	64	83	84	89	73	79
University of Adelaide	62	106	81	103	92	102
Macquarie University	168	182	189	220	211	233
RMIT	200	206	223	–	228	246
Curtin University of Technology	–	232	=244	274	258	258
University of Wollongong	199	207	251	267	269	264
University of Newcastle	–	–	266	256	291	268
University of Canberra	–	–	–	–	–	279
Queensland University of Technology	195	212	=244	289	267	281
University of Technology, Sydney	–	234	232	257	268	284
University of South Australia	–	303	295	281	256	293
Flinders University of South Australia	–	273	254	251	299	342
University of Tasmania	–	291	326	–	343	357
James Cook University	–	401-500	=355	–	352	362
Griffith University	–	325	291	–	346	368
La Trobe University	–	242	241	286	317	375
Bond University	–	–	–	–	–	380
Deakin University	–	396	=355	–	401-450	401-450
Murdoch University	–	401-500	401-500	451-500	501-550	401-450
Swinburne University of Technology	–	401-500	401-500	401-450	401-450	451-500
University of Western Sydney	–	–	–	–	601+	601+
The QS Topuniversities ranking of Australian universities.

The THE World University Rankings

At first THES ranked only 200 universities, then expanded to the world's top 500 universities.It fessed up on its website that it had right-royally screwed up the 2010 rankings for the University of Oslo, Monash University, and the University of Adelaide. Given that, we find it a little hard to accept their self-description as the only global university performance tables to judge world class universities across all of their core missions – teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.

University	2010/2011	2011/2012	2012/2013
University of Melbourne	36	37	28
Australian National University	43	38	37
University of Sydney	71	58	62
University of Queensland	81	74	65
University of New South Wales	152	173	85
Monash University	178	117	99
University of Adelaide	73	201-225	176
University of Western Australia	–	189	190
Macquarie University	–	226-250	251-275
Queensland University of Technology	–	276-300	251-275
University of Newcastle	–	276-300	276-300
Murdoch University	–	–	301-350
University of South Australia	–	351-400	301-350
University of Wollongong	–	251-275	301-350
Charles Darwin University	–	301-350	351-400
Deakin University	–	351-400	351-400
Flinders University of South Australia	–	351-400	351-400
University of Tasmania	–	301-350	351-400
University of Technology, Sydney	–	–	351-400
Curtin University of Technology	–	351-400	–
Griffith University	–	351-400	–
La Trobe University	–	351-400	–
Swinburne University of Technology	–	351-400	–
The THE World University Rankings ranking of Australian universities.

1. 'Academic ranking of world universities', Scientometrics (2005) 64(1):101; and 'Irreproducibility of the results of the Shanghai academic ranking of world universities', Scientometrics (2007) 72(1):25.