Australian and Asian universities climb the ranks in the Times Higher Education top 100 list

MONASH University and the University of Sydney have leapfrogged ahead of institutions in the US and Europe in the 2014-15 Times Higher Education World University Rankings. In addition, a significant proportion of universities in this year’s top 100 are from Asia. Darren Boon reports.

Monash University, Caulfield. Photo: Sarah Lim

Australian institutions have performed well in this year’s Times Higher Education top 100 list of universities around the world, which was announced on October 1.

Universities in Asia however, have fared better overall in rankings compared to Australian universities.

While the University of Melbourne remained in the top spot for Australian universities and climbed one place higher to rank 33 in the world, the university was still unable to edge out the University of Tokyo and the University of Singapore, ranked 23 and 25 respectively.

The Australian National University in 48th spot last year, swapped places with China’s Peking University to rank 45 this year.

The University of Sydney moved up the rankings significantly, jumping 12 places from 72 to 60, followed by Monash University up eight places from 91 last year to rank 83 in 2014-15.

In Asia, Turkey’s Middle East Technical University broke into the top 100 for the first time to place 85.

Also noteworthy is Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, which climbed 15 spots to rank 61, just behind the University of Sydney.

The rankings were measured on 13 performance indicators and groupedinto five areas:

• Teaching: the learning environment
• Research: volume, income and reputation
• Citations: research influence
• Industry income: innovation
• International outlook: staff, students and research

Universities were also ranked by subject areas, and in Australia, eight universities were in the top 100 universities for ‘Arts and Humanities’, and seven for ‘Clinical, Pre-Clinical & Health’, ‘Life Sciences’, ‘Engineering & Technology’ and ‘Social Sciences’.

Three Australian universities were in the top 100 for Physical Sciences.

World’s top 10 dominated by the US and the UK

Institutions in the US and UK continue to dominate the world’s top 10 universities in the Times Higher Education rankings.

Since overtaking Harvard University in 2010-11, the California Institute of Technology has maintained its top spot, beating Harvard again this year by a tiny one-point margin.

The University of Oxford and Stanford University remain unchanged in third and fourth place
respectively.

A full list of the 2014-2015 rankings is available on the Times Higher Education World University Rankings website.