The university is very pleased with its improvement in the new CWUR ranking, but other unis don’t appear to have noticed how they did

The Centre for World University Rankings reports Curtin U is now ninth in Australia, improving 30 spots. The lift is another improvement for Curtin. In May, it made it into the top 200 of the research ranking that really rates, from Leiden University up from 316 last year and 355 in 2017.

Ranking researchers suggest this is largely due to Curtin’s long-term strategy of hiring highly-cited researchers, developing the university’s own talent and encouraging all to publish in targeted journals that suit the university strategy.

Overall the order of Aus institutions in the new CWUR is routine, although Uni Melb at first in country starts further down the global list than is common, at 64 (seven places down on last year). The rest of the top ten is Uni Sydney (100), Monash U (102, up from 124), ANU (108, down from 82), UNSW (113), Uni Queensland (115, down from 74) UWA (126, up from 145), Uni Adelaide (217),) Curtin U (360 up from 400) and Macquarie U (371).

The CWUR does not get much of a run for its rankings in Australia – Curtin U appears the only institution to want its position known.  Perhaps this is due to its using metrics that may not capture much that really matters, alumni awards and employment achievement are two major categories. Then again, it does not include surveys of academics.