Jumping 15 places since last year’s rank of 83, Vice-Chancellor and Principal Dr Michael Spence said the result reflects the University’s 160-year history as home of academic excellence.
"As Australia’s oldest university we have a long history of excellence," said Dr Spence. "But this doesn’t mean we rest on our laurels.
"We are investing at an unprecedented level in supporting academics to conduct truly outstanding research that will have an impact on many lives around the world. This includes investing in whole-of-university research facilities and collaborating with some of the world’s best academics at institutions such as Harvard."
Dr Spence also pointed to the University’s 10 mutlidisiplinary initiatives as thriving hubs for scholarship, conducting research on some of the most pressing issues of our time, from obesity, cancer and antimicrobial resistance to improving policy.
The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) is released annually by the ShanghaiRanking Consultancy. It considers more than 1500 universities worldwide, providing specific rankings for the top 100 universities.
Among the heavily weighted criteria considered in the ARWU rankings are research output, highly cited researchers and prestigious academic awards, such as Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals.
Harvard University tops the 2018 ARWU rankings for the 16th year, followed by Stanford, Cambridge, MIT and the University of California (Berkeley).
