By Adam Carey
Melbourne is home to two of the world’s 50 top-ranked universities for the first time, after Monash surged into second place in Australia behind the University of Melbourne.
Melbourne has held its spot as Australia’s highest-ranked university in the Times Higher Education world university rankings for 2023, but slid one place on last year’s ranking, from 33rd to 34th.
Monash University has risen from 57th to 44th in the Times Higher Education world university rankings.Credit: Wayne Taylor
Monash was among the biggest improvers in the nation, leaping from 57th to 44th place, and from fifth to second among Australian institutions, overtaking the University of Queensland, the University of Sydney and the Australian National University compared with last year’s rankings.
Melbourne and Monash are the only two Australian universities to finish in the top 50, among 10 that finished in the top 200 this year, down from 12 last year.
University rankings are important for universities in their quest to attract international students, an essential source of revenue that provided $37 billion for Australian tertiary institutions the year before the pandemic hit. International education is Victoria’s biggest export industry and generated $6.9 billion in revenue last year, according to state government figures.
But the rankings are also controversial, with some experts arguing they overemphasise universities’ research output at the expense of teaching.
Sixty per cent of the ranking points universities accrue are based on research and citations, compared with 30 per cent for teaching.
This month, the Productivity Commission warned rankings detract from universities’ incentive to invest in quality teaching.
“International rankings, which are heavily weighted towards research outputs, play an important role in attracting students, particularly international students. This means that universities’ incentives are poorly aligned with delivering quality teaching,” the commission said in its interim report on Australia’s education system.
Times Higher Education said Australia had held a strong overall position in the global rankings, driven by high levels of research funding, strong research productivity and international collaboration, as well as a healthy overseas student market.
Universities are showing signs of financial recovery.Credit: Wayne Taylor
Chief knowledge officer Phil Baty said the bigger picture remained remarkably healthy for Australia, though the rankings data did not yet reflect much of the fallout from the pandemic, such as the financial consequences of border closures.
“There can be no room for complacency,” Baty said. “The COVID response hit Australia harder than many of its key competitor nations in terms of border controls, and the rankings are increasingly competitive, with more universities from more countries taking part than ever before.”
Higher education expert Professor Andrew Norton, from ANU’s Centre for Social Research and Methods, said a big shift in a university’s ranking could have financial repercussions because they were followed by international students, particularly in China.
But he said they had negligible influence in the domestic market, where the Australian Tertiary Admission Ranking drove student choice.
“The trouble with this ranking is it has a large number of elements to it, and it includes things that are subjective, like a reputation survey,” Norton said.
Melbourne and Monash were the only Victorian universities in the top 200.
Monash University vice chancellor Professor Margaret Gardner said the results were a testament to the hard work of the university’s staff and their enduring commitment to world-class research and education.
“These results are a reflection of our commitment to fostering a world-class research and teaching environment that supports our goals to be truly diverse, innovative and sustainable, and our ambitious collaboration with a global network of research partners,” Gardner said.
University of Melbourne vice chancellor Professor Duncan Maskell said Melbourne had been consistently ranked among the world’s finest universities for more than a decade.
“It’s a reputation earned by the university’s academic staff who continue to produce outstanding research and work tirelessly to educate our students,” he said.
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