The University of Sydney has again ranked first in NSW and maintained its third position in Australia in the latest 2025 ShanghaiRanking Academic Ranking of World Universities 2025. The University ranked 72nd in the world, up two spots on last year and retaining its place in the top global 100.
The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) ranks more than 2500 universities worldwide and publishes the top 1000 results; it is released annually by the ShanghaiRanking Consultancy.
ARWU has ranked the world's top universities annually since 2003, using objective third-party data. Its rankings methodology uses six indicators including the number of alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, highly cited researchers, papers published in the prestigious journals Nature and Science, papers indexed in prominent citation databases, and per capita performance of academics.
Our 2025 ARWU ranking follows our strong showing earlier this year when we rose to first in Australia in the US News Rankings and placed equal 25th globally in the QS World University Rankings.
Professor Julie Cairney
Interim Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research)
"Our 2025 ARWU ranking follows our strong showing earlier this year when we rose to first in Australia in the US News Rankings and placed equal 25th globally in the QS World University Rankings."
Professor Julie Cairney
Interim Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research)
Professor Julie Cairney , interim Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) said the results demonstrated the ongoing strength of the University's research output and impact across a breadth of fields.
"We congratulate our academics for another strong result which sees the University of Sydney maintain our Australian rank and once again increase our global position.
"Our 2025 ARWU ranking follows our strong showing earlier this year when we rose to first in Australia in the US News Rankings and placed equal 25th globally, alongside Princeton, in the QS World University Rankings. "
Among the University of Sydney's highly cited academics
- Faculty of Science researcher Professor Anita Ho-Baillie , the John Hooke Chair of Nanoscience. Her research interest is to engineer materials and devices at nanoscale for integrating solar cells onto all kinds of surfaces generating clean energy. She has been identified as one of the leaders in advancing perovskite solar cells. Her achievements in setting solar cell energy efficiency world records in various categories have placed her research at the forefront internationally. She is currently a finalist in the 2025 Australian Museum Eureka Prize for Sustainability Research.
- Faculty of Engineering 's Professor Yonghui Li, Director of Wireless Engineering Laboratory in School of Electrical and Information Engineering. He is the recipient of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Queen Elizabeth II Fellowship in 2008 and ARC Future Fellowship in 2012. He is an IEEE Fellow for contributions to cooperative communications technologies, and recently received and ARC Industry Laureate Fellowship to develop a new WiFi system called HoloFi.
- Faculty of Medicine and Health researcher Professor Glenda Halliday , one of the world's leading experts on neurodegeneration. She has dedicated her career to research critical to improving the lives of those with Parkinson's, dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases. Her research has directly influenced clinical practice by providing the evidence base for understanding the pathologies underlying neurodegenerative diseases, clarifying the trajectory of the diseases over time and exploring any potential variability. She was awarded the 2021 Robert A. Pritzker Prize for Leadership in Parkinson's Research by the Michael J Fox foundation, which recognises scientists who make an exceptional research contribution to improve treatments for Parkinson's patients.
