August 15, 2018

UOW achieves highest ever ARWU ranking

Publications and citations lead the charge into world’s top 250 universities.

The University of Wollongong (UOW) has achieved its second consecutive jump in the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), rising five places to 246 in the 2018 rankings.

It is UOW’s highest ever ranking and builds on the success of 2017, when UOW rose 81 places to be ranked 251st in the world.

The latest rankings make UOW the 12th highest ranked university in Australia.

The prestigious ARWU listing is a research-based ranking system, drawn from independently sourced data which is used to rank the world’s top 500 research universities annually.

Universities are ranked by several indicators of academic or research performance, including alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, highly cited researchers, papers published in Nature and Science, papers indexed in major citation indices, and the per capita academic performance of an institution.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Wellings CBE said the results reflected the calibre of research talent at the University, and the focus on undertaking research with real-world impacts.

“This achievement, rising in a globally recognised rankings for the second year in a row, is a testimony to the drive and ambition our researchers show,” Professor Wellings said.

“They continue to lead the way in producing quality, accessible research the leads to positive economic and social outcomes.

“The rankings also highlight the benefits of taking a collaborative approach to scientific research, be that through attracting funding for major centres of excellence, or through initiatives such as , our world-leading molecular and life sciences research facility.”

The rankings, published since 2003 by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, also showed strong global performances in measures for highly cited fellows, in particular from the UOW-led Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Biodiversity and Heritage (CABAH) and the Australian Institute for Innovative Materials (AIIM).

Also on the rise are publications indexed in major citation indices. including those in Nature and Science.

UOW ranked highly in a number of individual subject areas, with several engineering disciplines ranking in the top 100 worldwide.

The three engineering fields of civil, metallurgical and mining ranked in the 51 to 75 band, while nanoscience and transportation both ranked in the 76 to 100 band.

In social sciences, education was placed in the 76 to 100 band.