ANU ranked in top 50

Australia’s top university has been ranked the equal 49th best university in the world, according to a study which clearly places the ANU amongst the world’s best.

Aerial view The Academic Ranking of World Universities — 2003 report, conducted by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Institute of Higher Education, ranks the world’s top 500 universities on the basis of academic and research performance.

Universities were evaluated by a number of indicators of research performance, including number of Nobel Laureates, number of highly cited researchers, academic performance and number of articles published in leading journals including Nature and Science.

The ANU was ranked in the top 50 universities in the world and 3rd of all the universities in the Asia-Pacific region.

The report follows the release of another ranking of researchers who have made fundamental contributions to their discipline over the past 20 years, ISIHighlyCited, which lists 50 Australian researchers, of whom 21 are ANU staff.

ANU Vice-Chancellor Professor Ian Chubb said the findings capped a remarkable year for the ANU.

“ANU staff are very distinguished - it’s as simple as that; and this study is another welcome confirmation of their distinction,” Professor Chubb said.

“The Minister directly responsible for the establishment of ANU in 1946, Mr John Dedman commented '… the reputation of a university depends not on the number of its students or on the splendour of its buildings but on the quality of its members and the nature of its contribution to learning.'

“He also set for us a challenge when he said that he expected the ANU to 'bring credit to Australia ... and take its rightful place among the great universities of the world.'

“I suspect that Mr Dedman would be pleased with the outcome — his creation has certainly done what he had hoped,” Professor Chubb said.

“We want to achieve great results and meet high standards. We want every Australian to know that their national university rates so highly in world rankingsand to be proud of that achievement, in many ways theirs as much as ours,” Professor Chubb said.

“This ranking is an affirmation of the quality of the work of ANU staff and students. Because of it we will continue to bring ‘credit to Australia’.”