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University rankings rate universities’ performance on a range of metrics such as teaching quality, academic reputation, research output, employability and international outlook. Two of the most noteworthy international rankings schemes are provided by the QS World University Rankings and the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings.

In the latest THE rankings, ANU was ranked 73rd in the world (down from 67th in 2023) and remained 4th in Australia.  While this decline in ranked performance from the previous year is in line with a general fall across Australian universities, this continues a trend for ANU since our high point at number 47 as a THE top 50 university in 2017, and a decline in our QS rankings from 19th in the world in 2016 to 30th in 2025.

Rankings are one indicator for a university’s comparative performance, which can matter for prospective students, staff and employers. Being relatively smaller than other leading Australian universities provides a human-scale environment and a strong sense of community. However, this can work against us under some rankings criteria that prioritise scale.

We can be proud that we have more subjects ranked in the world top 10 than any other Australian university. In the QS Ranking by Subject 2024, we have five disciplines ranked in the top 10 in the world:

• Archaeology (8th)
• Politics & International Studies (8th)
• Anthropology (9th)
• Philosophy (9th)
• Development Studies (10th)

While we will always focus on providing the best possible student experience and ensuring excellence in our research and education, we must also focus on what we can do to perform better in future rankings. 

The University has established a taskforce led by the Research and Innovation portfolio that is identifying why our ranking performance has declined and what we can do to improve. The taskforce has identified the need to:

• ensure our research activity is accurately and completely recorded;
• strengthen our international collaborations and linkages;
• improve our process for nominations by peers and employers as a leading university in the Asia Pacific; and
• ensure that anyone with joint appointments uses ANU as well as their other affiliations in their publications byline. 

A key criterion in both rankings schemes is our reputation. To this end, I will be reaching out to our academic community with guidance on how to nominate other academics and international and local employers of our graduates who can speak to the impressive contribution of our research and the high quality of our graduates.

I look forward to sharing further updates from our rankings taskforce as we implement some of the outcomes. 

Professor Rebekah Brown

Provost and Senior Vice-President