The Australian Institute for International Affairs is the top Australian think tank in the University of Pennsylvania’s 2016  global ranking of policy centres, rated 46^th in the world, down two places on the previous year. It is followed by the Lowy Institute for International Policy at 57 (down three) and the Centre for Independent Studies, which is 106^th (down one). So that’s the country’s top three sources of policy-focused research all independent of a university.

The Think Tanks and Civil Societies Progamme at UniPa  collects data and surveys 1900 institutions and individuals to create its annual ranking.

The top ten in the SE Asia and Pacific region are; the AIIA, the New Zealand Centre for Strategic Studies, Singapore’s Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, Malaysia’s Centre for Public Policy Studies, Indonesia’s Centre for Strategic and International Studies, the Lowy Institute, the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at ANU, the Institute of Strategic and International Studies in Malaysia and the CIS.

Of the top 90 university-affiliated policy research centres around the world the ANU’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre rates 28, the University of Sydney’s Centre for International Security Studies is 35^th, Victoria University of Wellington’s Centre for International Security Studies is 39^th, the Globalisation and Development Centre at Bond University is 47^th, the Australia China Relations Institute at UTS is 79^th and the National Security College at ANU is 84^th. These are good results for Bond U, which established its centre a bare decade back and UTS where the centre is just three years old.

The global top ten in all categories are: the Brookings Institution, Chatham House, the French Institute of International Relations, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (US), the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Bruegel (Belgium), Rand Corporation (US) the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, Fundacao Getulio Vargas (Brazil) and the Council on Foreign Relations (US).