Australian universities ride high in global top 200

Australia has a record 12 universities in the Times Higher Education’s global top 200 this year.

The University of Melbourne is Australia’s top-ranked university at 31st.

Australia has a record 12 universities in the Times Higher Education’s global top 200 this year following the entry of Macquarie University into the list at 195th in the world.

Nine of Australia’s top 200 institutions rose higher this year in what is possibly Australian universities’ peak ranking achievement before massive COVID-19 revenue losses forced them to cut spending on teaching and research, precipitating a rankings slide.

The University of Melbourne remained well clear of the rest of the field at 31st, the University of Sydney rose nine places to 51st, and Monash University gained 11 places to 64th.

The big improver in the 2021 Times Higher Education world university rankings was the University of Technology Sydney, which rose 34 places to 160th. Acting vice-chancellor Andrew Parfitt said UTS was “now regarded not just as a leading technology university but also as a significant research institution in our own right”.

However Times Higher Education chief knowledge officer Phil Baty sounded a warning to universities about the devastating impact of the global recession and the loss of international students due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“With the backdrop of COVID-19, well-established higher education systems could be under threat as they face the very real risk of losing significant international student talent, and the billions of dollars in fees that they bring,” Mr Baty said.

“In the longer term, possibly permanent shifts in the global flow of academic talent that has traditionally fuelled elite institutions could create real challenges.”

Mr Baty said while top universities “with long histories of success and prestige” should be resilient, a “deep and long-lasting” global recession and its likely impact on university funding, “could herald the start of a dramatic rebalancing of the global knowledge economy.”

Duncan Maskell, vice-chancellor of Australia’s top ranked University of Melbourne, said it was likely that falls in university revenue due to loss of international students would have an impact on research and hence the rankings.

“This will make it harder to predict performance in the rankings in the future, as it will be difficult to determine whether some universities are affected more than others, or whether a more level playing field will be established,” Professor Maskell said.

The Australian National University is down this year, sliding nine places to 59th, and the University of Western Australia dropped eight places to 139th.

Other Australian universities in the top 200 are Queensland (62nd), UNSW (67th), Adelaide (118th), Canberra (184th) and the Queensland University of Technology (186th).

This year Oxford University topped the Times Higher Education world ranking for the fifth consecutive year with the next four places filled by Stanford, Harvard, Caltech and MIT, respectively.

China’s Tsinghua University became the first Asian university to make the top 20, underlining what Times Higher Education calls Asia’s challenge to the UK and the US, which are the current world higher education superpowers.

Mainland Chinese institutions in the top 100 have doubled to six during the year, the same number has Australia has. There are a total of 16 Asian universities in the top 100, including first-timers Fudan, Zhejiang and Shanghai Jiao Tong (China), and South Korea’s Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.

Australian universities in the top 200 of the 2021 Times Higher Education World University Rankings

31. University of Melbourne

51. University of Sydney

59. Australian National University

62. University of Queensland

64. Monash University

67. UNSW

118. University of Adelaide

139. University of Western Australia

160. University of Technology Sydney

184. University of Canberra

186. Queensland University of Technology