15 March 2012

The University of Queensland has further improved its position among the world’s top 100 universities in the Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings.

UQ advanced from a world reputation ranking band of 81-90 last year to 71-80 in the 2012 round.

The rankings complement the Times Higher Education's World University rankings, and reflect UQ’s performance in advancing seven places to be ranked 74th overall in these rankings last October.

For the second year in a row, UQ is one of only four Australian universities and the only Queensland university featured in the rankings.

The 2012 Reputation Rankings are based on a survey of academic opinion, featuring 17,554 respondents from 137 countries.

The invitation-only survey, carried out by Ipsos, has in the two years it has been running attracted almost 31,000 responses from senior, published scholars from 149 countries.

UQ Vice-Chancellor Professor Debbie Terry said UQ’s listing in the top 100 universities of the world by reputation in teaching and research was a credit to current and former staff, students and alumni.

“It reflects the hard work undertaken by our university community in learning, scholarship and contributions to society, and indicates broad recognition that The University of Queensland brand continues to be an asset to its graduates and current and future students.”

UQ has been rated one of the world's leading 100 universities by a number of independent rankings with different methodologies in the past 12 months.

These include:
• the Shanghai Jiao Tong Academic Ranking of World Universities, which rated UQ at 86th in the world;

• the QS World University Rankings (world ranking 48);

• the Times Higher Education World University Rankings (74)

• the Scimago Institutions Rankings World Reports (77); and

• the 2011 Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities (76).

Phil Baty, editor of the Times Higher Education Rankings, said: “Only 100 universities are listed in our prestigious World Reputation Rankings – that is around 0.5 per cent of the world’s higher education institutions.

“So those that feature in the list are part of an exclusive global elite of exceptionally powerful university brands.”

Media: Jan King 0413 601 248.