Australia stands strong but China is coming

The University of Melbourne and ANU represent Australia in the world’s top 50 universities, according to the Times Higher Education ranking, released overnight. UniMelbourne claws one place up to 32 in the world while ANU drops one place to 48.

Other universities in the global top 100 are the University of Sydney, down one to 61, University of Queensland down five to 65, Monash U, up six to equal 80 and UNSW, down 75 to 85. The only other Australian institutions in the world’s best 200 are the University of Western Australia up 14 places to equal 111 and the University of Adelaide up eight to equal 134. Demonstrating the rankings’ sensitivity to changes in the variables, UWA’s improvement restores most of the loss last year when it dropped 16 spots from its 2015 position.

Movement among other universities is shown in bands of 50 to 400 and 100 for the second 800.

James Cook U and University of South Australia move from 251-300 to 201-250. This is another big win for UniSA, which last year rose from the 351-400 band.

The University of Newcastle drops a band to 251-300, back to where it was in 2015 and Deakin U moves from 251-300 to 301-350, its location in 2015. Flinders U returns to trend, improving two bands, to 301-350, one up on its 2015 place.

Across the world, the University of Oxford U is number one for the second year, with Cambridge U moving up from fourth to second.

China, including Hong Kong has four universities in the global top 50, Peking U at =27, up two places, Tsinghua U up five to 30, the University of Hong Kong up three to 40 and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, up five to 44. Times Higher states that this is the first time the PRC has cracked the top 30.

The National University of Singapore is =22 in the world, up two places on 2016 and the republic’s other university, Nanyang Technological U is 52 in the world.