11 September 2012

The University of Queensland has been ranked one of the world's top universities for arts and humanities in a prestigious new international rankings released today.

UQ was ranked 56th in the world for arts and humanities, in the areas of: philosophy, modern languages, geography, history, linguistics, English language and literature.

Arts' impressive score was driven by indicators including academic and employer reputation, citations, staff to student ratio and number of international students.

Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Professor Fred D’Agostino said it was a credit to the achievements of Faculty staff, students and alumni that UQ consistently ranked in the top band for Humanities.

“Despite competing in an international arena, UQ’s arts and humanities programs, leading research and excellent teachers continue to be recognised,” Professor D’Agostino said.

Professor D’Agostino said the ranking recognised the University's commitment to both traditional and next generation teaching in the humanities.

“We think it’s important to teach both Classics and Film and Television Studies.

"We think it’s important to have both student-centred, face-to-face small-group teaching and on-line work.

“This is what the ranking recognises: the quality of our student cohort and the excellence and innovation of our academic staff.”

With its new world ranking, arts and humanities study at UQ has improved by six places from 2011 and 35 places from 2010.

The QS World University Rankings currently considers more than 2000 universities, and evaluates more than 700 universities in the world, ranking the top 400.

For over 100 years, students have been studying and enjoying Arts and Humanities at UQ.

This new ranking reinforces UQ’s Faculty of Arts’ reputation as a leading global Humanities educator.

Media: Dania Lawrence (07) 3365 9163 or d.lawrence@uq.edu.au).