Research excellence cements our position in Times university rankings

University of Sydney Vice-Chancellor and Principal Dr Michael Spence said the result confirmed the University of Sydney's place among the world's leading universities.

"We have for more than 160 years enabled generations of students to discover, create and lead for the benefit of Australia and the world,” Dr Spence said. “This result recognises the impact of our research and teaching on the local, national and international communities we serve. And it acknowledges the dedication and talent of our staff, whose work makes such a difference.”

The rankings validate the strength of the University’s research citations, particularly in the disciplines of Medicine, Nursing, Health Sciences, Economics, Education and Social Work, and Agriculture and the Environment.

THE Rankings Editor Phil Baty congratulated the University of Sydney on a world-class performance.

"This has been accomplished in no small part by Sydney's research excellence," Mr Baty said.

"THE World University Rankings are uniquely comprehensive – they use 13 separate performance indicators to judge world-class universities against all of their key missions, including both teaching and research, using tough, global standards.

"Its position means the University of Sydney falls well within the top one per cent of higher education institutions in the world – it is a remarkable achievement."

Australia has 35 universities in the Times' world top 800, making it the number five nation.

Overall, the top 20 in this year's THE list is very similar to 2015, with the top 20 mainly coming from the US, followed by the UK, with one European inclusion, ETH Zurich, in ninth place.

Key performance indicators for THE Rankings

THE rankings performance indicators are grouped into five areas:

• Teaching (30%) – includes a reputation survey, and measures staff-to-student ratio, doctorate-to-bachelor’s ratio, doctorates-awarded-to-academic-staff ratio, and institutional income
• Research (30%) – includes a reputation survey, and measures research income and research productivity
• Research citations (30%)
• International outlook (7.5%) - measures international-to-domestic-student ratio, international-to-domestic-staff ratio, and international collaboration
• Industry income (2.5%) – measures how much research income an institution earns from industry against the number of academic staff it employs.

View a complete list of the 2016-17 Times Higher Education World University Rankings.