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?

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

The first was Shanghai Jiao Tong University, which only began the exercise in 2003. Several international conferences later, these ratings are now conducted under the rubric of the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). This site also lists other rankings systems. Well worth visiting.
A year later The Times Higher Education Supplement conducted a parallel exercise. By 2008 this had (also) transmuted into the THE/QS World University Rankings, conducted by Times Higher Education and Quacquarelli Symonds Ltd.

These two 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.

We list here the rankings of the Australian universities from both ARWU and THE/QS, for all the years available (which isn't that many). If you can't find your Aussie university here, you might want to rethink your educational choice.

The ARWU and THE/QS lists rarely agree: many universities on one list are not on the other, let alone their relative position. Make up your own mind.

Updated Added ARWU rankings for 2009.

Contents

The ARWU rankings
The THE/QS rankings

The ARWU rankings

The ARWU ranks the top 500 or so of the world's universities.

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	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009
Australian National University	49th	53rd	56th	54th	57th	59th	59th
University of Melbourne	92	82	82	78	79	73	75
University of Sydney	102-151	101-152	101-152	102-150	102-150	97	94
University of Queensland	102-151	101-152	101-152	102-150	102-150	101-151	101-151
University of Western Australia	—	153-201	153-202	102-150	102-150	101-151	101-151
University of New South Wales	152-200	153-201	153-202	151-200	151-202	152-200	152-200
University of Adelaide	201-250	202-301	203-300	201-300	151-202	201-302	201-302
Macquarie University	300-350	302-403	203-300	201-300	202-304	201-302	201-302
Monash University	152-200	202-301	203-300	201-300	203-304	201-302	201-302
Flinders University of South Australia	—	404-502	401-500	401-500	305-402	303-401	303-401
University of Newcastle	351-400	302-403	301-400	301-400	305-402	303-401	303-401
University of Tasmania	351-400	302-403	401-500	401-500	403-510	303-401	303-401
University of Wollongong	—	—	—	—	403-510	303-401	303-401
James Cook University	401-450	—	—	401-500	403-510	303-401	402-501
La Trobe University	401-450	404-502	401-500	301-400	403-510	402-503	402-501
Curtin University of Technology	—	—	—	—	—	—	402-501
Swinburne University of Technology	—	—	—	—	—	—	402-501
Murdoch University	—	404-502	401-500	401-500	403-510	—	—
University of New England	—	—	—	401-500	403-510	—	—
University of the Sunshine Coast	152-200	—	—	—	—	—	—
The ARWU ranking of Australian universities, from a global field of 510.

The THE/QS rankings

THE/QS ranks the top 200 of the world's universities, down to the very rank. THE/QS ranks the Australian universities much higher than ARWU does. We are more than dubious. The 2007 THE/QS ratings also place one Australian university as better than every university in Europe and every university in Japan. We don't think so.

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

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

University	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
Australian National University	16th	23rd	16th	16th	16th
University of Sydney	40	38	35	31	37
University of Melbourne	22	19	22	27	38
University of Queensland	49	40	45	33	43
University of New South Wales	36	40	41	44	45
Monash University	33	34	38	43	47
University of Western Australia	96	80	111	64	83
University of Adelaide	56	80	105	62	106
Macquarie University	68	67	82	168	182
Queensland University of Technology	—	118	192	195	—
University of Wollongong	—	—	196	199	—
RMIT	55	82	146	200	—
Curtin University of Technology	76	101	156	—	—
University of Technology, Sydney	113	87	—	—	—
La Trobe University	142	98	—	—	—
University of Newcastle	—	127	—	—	—
University of South Australia	—	154	—	—	—
University of Tasmania	151	166	—	—	—
The THES/QS ranking of Australian universities, from a global field of 200.

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.