Times Higher Ed: Six Australian universities among top 100 in the world
Australia’s best universities are revealed in a new global ranking, as Chinese institutions leapfrog some of the most prestigious universities in the western world.
Six Australian universities are ranked in the top 100 worldwide, with a strong reputation for high-quality teaching and research, in the 2026 rankings.
The University of Melbourne is the best Australian institution, ranked 37 globally – climbing from 39 in 2025 to pip prestigious King’s College London.
It achieved near-perfect scores for research excellence and influence, as well as teaching quality.
Vice-chancellor Emma Johnston said the University of Melbourne offered “unparalleled diversity of expertise and experience’’, with more than 13,000 staff and 77,000 students.
Australia’s oldest institution, the elite University of Sydney, has jumped from 61 to 53 in the world’s most reputable ranking of universities.
Monash University is ranked 58, unchanged from 2025.
The Australian National University in Canberra – whose vice-chancellor, Genevieve Bell, stepped down last month – is treading water at 73.
The University of NSW gained ground, rising from 83 this year to a rank of 79 for 2026.
But the University of Queensland slipped from 77 to 80.
Ten Australian universities rank in the world’s top 200.
Twelve of Australia’s 37 ranked universities rose in the rankings, to be released on Thursday, with best-ever performances from Macquarie, Charles Sturt and Notre Dame.
The only ones to slip were the universities of Queensland and Western Australia, Charles Sturt University and Federation University.
Oxford University in England tops the world ranking.
It is followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US, an equal third place for Princeton University and the University of Cambridge, and a tie for Harvard and Stanford in the United States.
But Chinese universities are leapfrogging some of the most prestigious institutions in the Western world.
The University of Science and Technology of China, ranked 51 in the world, has now overtaken the London School of Economics and Political Science.
And the Chinese University of Hong Kong has jumped ahead of Canada’s University of British Columbia.
The City University of Hong Kong now ranks above both Boston University and France’s Sorbonne in Paris.
Times Higher Education chief global affairs officer Phil Baty said the data revealed “the shift in the balance of power in research and higher education from the long-established, dominant institutions of the West to rising stars of the East’’.
“The US and much of western Europe have suffered significant lost ground in the world rankings, while East Asian nations, led by China, continue to thrive and surge up the table,’’ he said.
“There’s a real opportunity for Australia … to strengthen its international talent attraction and to increase collaboration with thriving Southeast Asian institutions, and universities in Asia more widely.’’
The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2026 is the most comprehensive comparison of 2191 research universities, based on analysis of nearly 19 million research papers, 1.5 million votes from academics and detailed institutional data.
More than 55,000 published scholars answered the invitation-only survey to name up to 15 universities they believed to be the best in both research and teaching.
The metric with the highest rating is teaching, but universities are also assessed on their volume of research, their global reputation, their research quality and influence, and their international outlook, as well as income and patents.
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