Australia fares poorly in list of world’s top 200 universities

The University of Melbourne has been named Australia’s top university and 36th best in the world, according to the newly released Times Higher Education rankings, but Australia as a whole has missed out with only seven unis making the cut.

The list is now in its seventh year, and is compiled based on rankings in 13 separate performance categories including teaching, research and knowledge transfer. Harvard has topped the list once again, followed closely by the California Institute of Technology, which jumped nine places, and MIT.

The University of Melbourne has topped Australia’s seven universities on the list, followed by ANU in Canberra and the University of Sydney – which plummeted from 36th to 71st based on a change in key methodology used to compile the list.

The University of Adelaide fell jumped from 81st to 73, while the University of Queensland fell from 41 to 81st. The University of New South Wales suffered a massive drop from 47th to 152. Melbourne’s Monash University dropped from 45 to 178.

The major drop is due to a change in ranking structure. The results are compiled by Thomson Reuters, which gave more weight to indicators of research, rather than surveys filled out by students and staff.

Although some Australian universities managed to increase their listings, many fell due to the new methods. Some even dropped off the list completely, including the University of Western Australia and Macquarie University.

The Times Higher Education site explains the reasons behind the new methodology, saying it strives for a “new level of sophistication”.

“In light of this, the top 200 list and the six subject tables we are publishing should be considered the first of a new annual series, for we have completely overhauled the methodology to deliver our most rigorous, transparent and reliable rankings tables ever.”

“The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2010-11 were developed… with input from more than 50 leading figures in the sector from 15 countries across every continent, and through 10 months of extensive consultation. We believe we have created the gold standard in international university performance comparisons.”

The criteria are broken down into five main categories – teaching, research, citations, industry income and international mix.

The rankings even have their own iPhone app, which users can download to compare different universities, look up research information and match rankings against tuition and cost-of-living expenditure.