Times Higher Education: Australian institutions continue to be strong

The recently released Times Higher Education (THE) 2022 shows that more than 1600 institutions have been ranked globally, 135 more than the ‘THE 2021 rankings’. This is evidence of greater competition on the global stage.

What we are witnessing is the growing influence of Asian nations in the rankings. Japan leads the field with 118 institutions up from 116 in the 2021 rankings. China continues to be an emerging major force with 97 institutions ranked, or close to 6% of globally ranked institutions, compared to 91 institutions last year and with a similar share of globally ranked institutions. Driven by long-term investment in education and training, and incentives for expatriates to return home, China has 2 institutions in the top 20 for the first time and is equal fifth in the world in terms of institutions in the top 200 (10 institutions) compared to joint seventh last year ( ). Other Asian countries have improved, including India with 71 institutions compared to 63 last year. South Korea has moved from 35 to 36 institutions, Malaysia now has 18 institutions versus 15 last year, Indonesia has 14 this year compared to 9 last year, and Vietnam has improved from 3 to 5 globally ranked universities.

However, it is important to put the rise of Asian institutions in context. In total, the US and UK continue to account for the lion’s share of ranked universities, with the US having 183 (181 last year) and the UK having 101 institutions (same as last year), accounting for 11% and 6.1% respectively of globally ranked institutions. These two countries account for 85 institutions in the top 200 (with the US having 57), generally regarded as a benchmark for being a leading institution. The US and UK dominate the top 100 and top 10, with combined ranked institutions of 48 in the top 100 and all the top 10.

For Australia, the situation remains strong. There are 37 institutions in the rankings the same as last year, which is nearly all higher education providers. Australia’s broad-based, well-rounded higher education system has strong all-round capabilities. Compared to last year 13 Australian Universities have improved their ranking, 17 have remained the same, and 7 have dropped. Amongst the biggest gains are the University of Canberra, Swinburne University, the University of Southern Queensland, the University of Tasmania, and Western Sydney University.

Six Australian institutions are in the top 100, and 12 are in the top 200, with the highest placed institution being the University of Melbourne in 33rd place. No Australian institution is in the top 10, that being reserved, as indicated previously, for the sandstone universities abroad. Given the size of the sector relative to several others abroad, this is a solid performance.

Australian institutions have strengths in citations, research (research productivity measured by papers, research income and research reputation as measured by a global survey), international outlook (staff, students, international collaborative papers), and to a lesser extent industry income. Greater engagement with industry is arguably an area of attention for Australian universities.

Teaching, which comprises reputation (through a survey), doctorate to bachelor ratio, doctorates to academic staff ratio, institutional income in total, and student/staff ratios, generally tend to score lower than the other pillars. That’s because these are largely input measures rather than teaching quality or student satisfaction with teaching. However, teaching reputation does serve as a quality measure in the sense of being driven by academics’ perceptions of institutions rather than students’ sentiment. Greater involvement of students in these and other rankings may be an issue for rankings agencies to contemplate.