University strong performer in US News rankings

The University of Sydney has maintained its strong position in the US News Best Global Universities rankings, of 27th in the world and second in Australia.

The 2021 Best Global Universities ranks universities from 86 countries on academic research and reputation.

Performance indicators include the number of scholarly papers, books and highly cited papers as well as international collaborations. The University performed particularly strongly in regional research reputation (2^nd), books (9^th) - an important indicator of research quality in the humanities and social sciences – and in the number of highly cited papers that are among the top 1 percent most cited (27th).

Among our top-performing subjects in these global rankings are oncology (8^th), arts and humanities (11^th), endocrinology and metabolism (18^th), electrical and electronic engineering (22^nd) and clinical medicine (23^rd).

“While rankings don’t measure everything we as a University value, they are an important indicator of research excellence and it is gratifying to see that we maintained our strong global position in these rankings,” said Professor Duncan Ivison, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research).

“The results cap off an excellent year for Sydney in rankings – in which we maintained or improved our position in all major rankings.”

These include the THE Impact Rankings in April (up 23 places to second in the world), QS World University Rankings in June (up two places to 40th in the world), ARWU Rankings in August (up six places to 74th in the world) and the THE world rankings in September (up nine places to 51st in the world).

The University of Sydney has a long history of research excellence and international collaboration, with research partnerships with several highly-ranked universities, including Harvard, Toronto and University College London.

We are Harvard’s second most important collaborator as measured by total quantity of citations on joint papers and are currently working with University of California, Davis, to study climate-change induced bushfires, which have recently ravaged both our countries and on the world’s first total body PET scanner.

Our academics are also currently working on COVID-19, including developing a world-first, free tool to improve diagnosis and to train animal disease detectives across South East Asia and the Pacific to spot future zoonotic diseases that have the potential to develop into the next global pandemic.

In the QS employability rankings the University currently ranks 4^th in the world and 1st in Australia, placing it ahead of all the ‘Ivy League’ American universities including Harvard, Yale and Princeton.