Continuing recognition for research excellence in US rankings 

The University of Sydney has continued to excel in the US News Best Global Universities Rankings, placing 28th globally and second in Australia. 

Measuring research performance via indicators such as the number of scholarly papers, books and highly cited papers as well as international collaborations, the rankings also include subject rankings.  

Among our top performing subjects this year are endocrinology and metabolism (9^th globally), electrical and electronic engineering (10^th globally) and arts and humanities (12^th globally). 

Among our other high performing subjects globally this year are oncology (13^th), Artificial Intelligence, (16th), clinical medicine (20th), social science and public health (21st), engineering (25th), pharmacology and toxicology (27^th), public, environmental and occupational health (27^th) and computer science (29th). 

The US News Best Global Universities Rankings assess 2,000 top institutions, up from 1,750 last year, spread across 95 countries, up from 90 last year. 

“It is encouraging to see our continued strong performance in these rankings, only one of multiple ways we benchmark our performance. A recent University delegation to the US and Canada visiting leading institutions provided valuable insight into what we already excel at and what we could adapt. That includes our establishment, in partnership, of the Sydney Biomedical Accelerator, a nation-leading health, education and research precinct, which will fast-track patient care and research commercialisation and attract international collaborations and talent,” said Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Mark Scott. 

The Sydney Biomedical Accelerator is a partnership between the University, the Sydney Local Health District and the NSW Government, in collaboration with the Centenary Institute.  

The University had 11 subjects in the top 30 and 24 in the top 50. We were number one in Australia for endocrinology and metabolism, oncology, clinical medicine and surgery. The University was ranked number one in Australia for arts in humanities both in these rankings and in the recently published THE World University Rankings by subject 2023.

Areas of current research at the University include developing the world’s first total body PET scanner in collaboration with academics at US Davis, the development of a test to help predict the progression of melanoma, the finding that women face the higher likelihood of premature death from kidney disease than men, our contribution to a Nature prehistory paper on the earliest evidence of an amputation and engineers working on a method to increase the recycling of soft plastics by creating a smart robot that can identify, sort and separate different types of recyclable waste.

Professor Emma Johnston Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), said, “I note that the University collaborates with several of this year’s top 20 ranked universities, including Harvard University at number one. Harvard is the University of Sydney’s leading international collaborator, with more than 1500 research papers jointly published in the past three years. The University currently partners with five universities in North American on 93 projects. These international collaborations help drive our research excellence and international impact.” 

In other rankings results this year, in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, we jumped four places to 54^th globally, and were ranked 41st in the world in the QS World University Rankings, released in June.