Australia's Best Universities

Final Edition

Note Along with the rest of this site, this page ceased updating in 2014. No further results will be published.

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? 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.

The Rankers

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 many 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 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.

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.

Rankings Systems from the USA

The rankings are made by British and Chinese organisations. You would think that some organisation in the USA would get into the world-ranking market. Americans love statistics, and they are very good at compiling rankings and ratings. 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?

The Rankings

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 universities 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	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013
University of Melbourne	73	75	62	60	57	54
Australian National University	59	59	59	70	64	66
University of Queensland	101-151	101-151	101-150	86	90	85
University of Sydney	97	94	92	96	93	97
University of Western Australia	101-151	101-151	101-150	102-150	96	91
Monash University	201-302	201-302	151-200	151-200	101-150	101-150
University of New South Wales	152-200	152-200	151-200	151-200	101-150	101-151
Macquarie University	201-302	201-302	201-300	201-300	201-300	201-301
University of Adelaide	201-302	201-302	201-300	201-300	201-300	201-302
Flinders University of South Australia	303-401	303-401	301-400	301-400	301-400	301-401
James Cook University	303-401	402-501	301-400	301-400	301-400	301-401
University of Newcastle	303-401	303-401	301-400	301-400	301-400	301-401
University of Tasmania	303-401	303-401	401-500	301-400	301-400	301-401
University of Wollongong	303-401	303-401	301-400	401-500	301-400	301-401
Swinburne University of Technology	–	402-501	401-500	401-500	301-400	301-401
Griffith University	–	–	–	401-500	301-400	301-401
Curtin University of Technology	–	402-501	401-500	401-500	401-500	401-501
La Trobe University	402-503	402-501	401-500	401-500	401-500	401-502
University of Technology, Sydney	–	–	–	401-500	401-500	401-503
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.

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.

University	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013
Australian National University	16	17	20	26	24	27
University of Melbourne	38	=36	38	31	36	31
University of Sydney	37	=36	37	38	39	38
University of Queensland	43	41	43	48	46	43
University of New South Wales	45	47	46	49	52	52
Monash University	47	45	61	60	61	69
University of Western Australia	83	84	89	73	79	84
University of Adelaide	106	81	103	92	102	104
Macquarie University	182	189	220	211	233	263
University of Technology, Sydney	234	232	257	268	284	272
University of Wollongong	207	251	267	269	264	276
Queensland University of Technology	212	=244	289	267	281	279
Curtin University of Technology	232	=244	274	258	258	284
RMIT	206	223	–	228	246	291
University of Newcastle	–	266	256	291	268	298
James Cook University	401-500	=355	–	352	362	351
Deakin University	396	=355	–	401-450	401-450	380
La Trobe University	242	241	286	317	375	390
University of South Australia	303	295	281	256	293	=341
Griffith University	325	291	–	346	368	=341
University of Tasmania	291	326	–	343	357	401-410
Bond University	–	–	–	–	380	421-430
Flinders University of South Australia	273	254	251	299	342	431-440
Swinburne University of Technology	401-500	401-500	401-450	401-450	451-500	481-490
Murdoch University	401-500	401-500	451-500	501-550	401-450	551-600
University of Canberra	–	–	–	–	279	601-650
University of Western Sydney	–	–	–	601+	601+	651-700
The QS Topuniversities ranking of Australian universities.

The THE World University Rankings

At first THE 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	2013/2014
University of Melbourne	36	37	28	34
Australian National University	43	38	37	48
University of Queensland	81	74	65	63
University of Sydney	71	58	62	72
Monash University	178	117	99	91
University of New South Wales	152	173	85	114
University of Western Australia	–	189	190	168
University of Adelaide	73	201-225	176	201-225
University of Newcastle	–	276-300	276-300	251-275
Macquarie University	–	226-250	251-275	276-300
Queensland University of Technology	–	276-300	251-275	276-300
University of Wollongong	–	251-275	301-350	276-300
Murdoch University	–	–	301-350	301-350
University of South Australia	–	351-400	301-350	301-350
Deakin University	–	351-400	351-400	301-350
University of Technology, Sydney	–	–	351-400	301-350
Charles Darwin University	–	301-350	351-400	351-400
University of Tasmania	–	301-350	351-400	351-400
Swinburne University of Technology	–	351-400	–	351-400
Flinders University of South Australia	–	351-400	351-400	–
Curtin University of Technology	–	351-400	–	–
Griffith University	–	351-400	–	–
La Trobe University	–	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.