UNSW and Uni of Sydney tie at the top in readiness for challenge

Cross town rivals, the University of Sydney and UNSW, are the best equipped research institutions to tackle Australia’s toughest challenges.

UNSW’s Michelle Simmons, who leads the effort to build a silicon-based quantum computer, boosts her university’s performance in quantum technology.

Cross town rivals, the University of Sydney and UNSW, are the best equipped research institutions to tackle Australia’s toughest challenges according to a new data driven analysis of Australia’s research strengths in today’s Research 2023 magazine.

The two universities were judged among the top institutions ready to tackle the nation’s research challenges which range from high level technological developments such as quantum, to environmental problems like renewable energy, to community and societal issues such as healthy ageing.

UNSW is found to be a top institution ready for six research challenges – climate change, renewable energy, quantum technology, medical technology and devices, cybersecurity, and disability and rehabilitation.

Its success is driven by research stars such as quantum computer builder Michelle Simmons, and solar cell developer Martin Green.

The University of Sydney is found to have slightly different strengths. It is a top institution in six research challenges – healthy ageing, renewable energy, quantum technology, indigenous research, disability and rehabilitation, and media technology – a list which reflects its deep expertise in health and medicine.

The ten research challenges are explained in detail in the Research 2023 magazine, which comes with The Australian today.

Other universities which did well were the University of Queensland and Monash University, each named as a top institution for five of the challenges.

Queensland shines in climate change, quantum technology, indigenous research, food and agriculture, medical technology and devices. Monash’s strengths are healthy ageing, food and agriculture, medical technology and devices, cybersecurity, and media technology.

The CSIRO was judged as well equipped to tackle four of the challenges - climate change, renewable energy, food and agriculture, and cybersecurity.

University of Sydney deputy vice-chancellor (research) Emma Johnston said that universities took their work leading critical research very seriously “and our results positively impact the whole country”.

A clear example of its value was during the pandemic, she said. “Without our researchers’ expertise and discoveries, more lives would have been lost.”

The ten challenge areas were selected to reflect the range of national problems and priorities which can, at least partially, be addressed through quality research.

The Australian’s partner, talent discovery and research analytics firm League of Scholars, then used machine learning techniques to group the research topics that were relevant to each of the challenges. The next step was to identify, using public data, all of the Australian researchers with expertise in these topics and count citations to their work in peer reviewed journals over the past five years. Knowing which institution each researcher is affiliated to, we were able to list the top five universities, or other research institution, for each research challenge.