Ranking organisations

The five most recognised international university rankings demonstrate the growing strength of The University of Western Australia's research performance.

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
ARWU 179 115 120 127 113 112 110 96 91 88 87 96 91 93 99 85 96 99 -
QS 80 111 64 83 84 89 73 79 84 89 98 102 93 91 86 92 93 90 72
THE - - - - - - 189 190 168 157 109 125 111 134 131 139 132 132 131
USN&W - - - - - - - - - 113 128 95 88 81 86 79 78 83 -
NTU - - 213
238
212
199
190 179 166 148 137 134 129 123 116 124 125 111 -

UWA's Position in Rankings of Universities 2005-23

About the National Taiwan University Ranking (NTU)

The National Taiwan University Ranking (NTU) rankings first appeared in 2007. The ranking methodology has been relatively consistent since 2008 and is heavily reliant upon research output (Web of Science indexed articles).

Full NTU rankings
Key 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
NTU 213 238 212 199 190 179 166 148 137 134 129 123 116 124 125

NTU Ranking for UWA.

Performance Indicators

Within the NTU ranking there is no normalisation of citation data, which boosts the results of universities focused on medical and physical sciences, due to publication practices in those fields.

Staff size is not taken into account in the ranking (although the NTU team does provide a separate score for each university which has been adjusted for size).

Indicator 2015 Overall Performance Indicators Weighting (%)
Research Productivity Number of articles in the last 11 years* (2007-2017) 10 25
Number of articles in the current year (2017) 15
Research Impact Number of citations in the last 11 years* (2007-2017) 15 35
Number of citations in the last 2 years* (2016-2017) 10
Average number of citations in the last 11 years* (2007-2017) 10
Research Excellence h-index of the last 2 years (2016-2017) 10 40
Number of Highly Cited Papers* (2007-2017) 15
Number of articles in the current year in high-impact journals (2016-2017) 15

Weighting of Performance Indicators. Note: The timeframe of the three long-term indicators is consistent with that in ESI, providing cumulative data for the last 11 years.

Subject Rankings

The NTU Rankings have also expanded to include rankings by broad fields and specific subject areas for the top 300 universities in the world.

NTU Broad Field UWA 2021 Rank
Agriculture 23
Engineering 275
Life Sciences 135
Medicine 130
Natural Sciences 216
Social Sciences 110

NTU broad field ranking for UWA.

NTU Subject Area UWA 2021 Rank
Agricultural Sciences 39
Biology & Biochemistry 107
Chemical Engineering 239
Civil Engineering 50
Clinical Medicine 128
Computer Science 351-400
Economics & Business 182
Electrical Engineering 297
Environment / Ecology 46
Environmental Science & Engineering 110
Geosciences 37
Immunology 151
Materials Science 351-400
Mathematics 351-400
Mechanical Engineering 121
Microbiology 205
Molecular Biology & Genetics 122
Neuroscience & Behavior 180
Pharmacology & Toxicology 256
Physics 351-400
Plant & Animal Science 11
Psychiatry / Psychology 91
Social Sciences, General 113
Space Science 92

NTU subject area for UWA.

About the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU)

The ARWU first appeared in 2003. Although there have been some changes in the criteria used to rank universities, the ranking methodology has been fairly consistent since 2005.

Full ARWU rankings
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022
ARWU 179 115 120 127 113 112 110 96 91 88 87 96 91 93 99 85 96 99

ARWU World Ranking for UWA.

Performance Indicators

While the ARWU provides a list of the top 500 universities world wide, only the top 100 are provided with a ranked position. The remaining institutions are ranked in bands of either 50 or 100.

However, as the ARWU provides a score for each indicator for all 500 universities, we are able to determine the ranked position of all institutions to a high degree of accuracy.

Please refer to the ARWU website for information on the methodology.

ValueIndicator
Alumni winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, with the value declining over time since the winner's graduation (100 year time limit)10%
Staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals with the value declining over time since the award was granted (100 year time limit)20%
Highly-cited researchers affiliated to the institution on the Thomson Reuter's Highly Cited website in 21 broad subject categories20%
Articles published in Nature and Science over a five year window, weighted for the position of the institution in list of affiliations20%
The number of articles and published proceedings papers listed in the Science Citation Index and Social Sciences Citation Index for the previous calendar year20%
The per capita academic performance (on the indicators above) of an institution
10%

Weighting of performance indicators.

Subject Rankings

Field Subject Rank
Engineering Biotechnology 76-100
Environmental Science & Engineering 21
Marine/Ocean Engineering 13
Mining & Mineral Engineering 4
Water Resources 40
Life Sciences Agricultural Sciences 15
Biological Sciences 37
Human Biological Sciences 37
Medical Sciences Clinical Medicine 32
Public Health 51-75
Natural Sciences Earth Sciences 51-75
Ecology 47
Geography 76-100
Oceanography 27
Social Sciences Psychology 51-75

Subjects UWA ranked in the top 100.

About QS Ranking

The QS (Quacquarelli Symonds) Ranking was introduced in 2005 and was conducted in conjunction with the Times Higher Education magazine until 2009.

Full QS rankings
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
QS 80 111 64 83 84 89 73 79 84 89 98 102 93 91 86 92 93 90 72

QS World Ranking for UWA.

Performance Indicators

The QS ranking is based on six indicators, with 50% of the score determined by academics and business employers responses to reputation surveys.

QS have excluded self-citations since 2011. In 2015, QS introduced a hybrid model where normalization is applied to citation totals at the faculty area level. Given that around 49% of global citations are in the Life Sciences & Medicine area, applying this adjustment made a substantial difference to the indicator and overall performance of certain institutions, including UWA. In 2016, QS excluded papers with more than 10 affiliated institutions.

IndicatorPercentage
Academic Reputation40%
Employer Reputation10%
Faculty Student Ratio20%
Citations per Academic (Scopus)20%
International Academic Ratio5%
International Student Ratio5%

Weighting of performance indicators.

Subject Rankings

QS employ an different set of measures for their subject rankings, which list the top 200 universities in a given field. Each of the 54 subjects (across five broad areas) has different weightings applied to four factors:

Academic reputation:
Data are pulled on a per-subject basis from the survey employed in the main ranking.
Employer reputation:
Data are pulled on a per-subject basis from the survey employed in the main ranking.
Citations per paper:
Data are extracted from Scopus, and are calculated across a five year window (2010 to 2014 for the 2016 ranking)
H-Index:
Two h-indices are calculated; one for all the papers that are attributable to the given subject (h1), and one to the papers that are only attributable to that subject (h2). These are aggregated with double weight given to h2.
Subject Weight (%) 2023 Rank
Academic
Employer
Citations
H-Index
Arts & Humanities
60 20 10 10
160
Archaeology
70 10 10 10
51-100
Architecture
70 10 10 10
151-200
English Language & Literature
80 10 10
101-150
History
60 10 15 15
101-150
Modern Languages
70 30
201-250
Linguistics
80 10 5 5
201-250
Philosophy
75 5 10 10
101-150
Engineering & Technology
40 30 15 15
173=
Chemical Engineering
40 30 15 15
151-200
Civil & Structural Engineering
40 30 15 15
51-100
Computer Science and Information Systems
40 30 15 15
251-300
Electrical & Electronic Engineering
40 30 15 15
201-250
Petroleum Engineering
40 30 15 15
43=
MechanicalCOMMA Aeronautical & Manufacturing
40 30 15 15
201-250
Mining & Mineral
40 30 15 15
7
Life Sciences & Medicine
40 10 25 25
85=
Agriculture & Forestry
50 10 20 20
42=
Anatomy & Physiology
40 10 25 25
23
Biological Sciences
40 10 25 25
133=
Dentistry
30 10 30 30
51-80
Medicine
40 10 25 25
151-200
Pharmacy & Pharmacology
40 10 25 25
101-150
Psychology
40 20 20 20
50=
Natural Sciences
40 20 20 20
125=
Chemistry
40 20 20 20
201-250
Earth & Marine Sciences
40 10 25 25
29=
Environmental Studies
40 10 25 25
83=
Geography
60 10 15 15
101-150
Geology
60 10 15 15
23
Geophysics
60 10 15 15
30
Mathematics
40 20 20 20
151-200
Physics & Astronomy
40 20 20 20
151-200
Social Sciences & Management
50 30 10 10
152=
Accounting & Finance
50 30 10 10
101-150
Anthropology
70 10 5 15
101-150
Business & Management Studies
50 30 10 10
151-200
Communication & Media Studies
50 10 20 20
151-200
Economics & Ecomometrics
40 20 20 20
151-200
Education and Training
50 10 20 20
101-150
Law & Legal Studies
50 30 5 15
101-150
Sociology
70 10 5 15
151-200
Sports-Related Subjects
60 10 15 15
22=

Subject ranking and their weight by subject

About the Times Higher Education Ranking (THE)

The THE Ranking was introduced in 2005. Until 2009, Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) ran the rankings for the THE. The 2010 THE ranking had a new set of criteria and relied on information gathered from Thomson Reuters, as well as survey data and institutional statistics. The 2015 THE ranking moved from using Thomson Reuters to Scopus for the provision of data.

Full THE rankings
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022
THE 189 190 168 157 109 125 111 134 131 139 132 132

Time Higher Education World Ranking for UWA.

Performance Indicators

There has been some tweaking of the indictors since the introduction of the ranking in 2010 including an indictor for the level of international collaboration (judged using publication data in the WOS).

The THE ranking utilises Z scores for all data sets except for the results of the academic reputation survey.

Each data point is given a score based on its distance from the mean average of the entire data set, where the scale is the standard deviation of the data set.

IndicatorPercentage
Teaching - the learning environment 30%
Citations - research influence 30%
Research - volume, income and reputation 30%
International Outlook - staff, students and research 7.5%
Industry income - innovation 2.5%

Weighting of Performance Indicators

There has been some tweaking of the indictors since the introduction of the ranking in 2010 including an indictor for the level of international collaboration (judged using publication data in the WOS).

The THE ranking utilises Z scores for all data sets except for the results of the academic reputation survey.

Each data point is given a score based on its distance from the mean average of the entire data set, where the scale is the standard deviation of the data set.

The Z-score is then turned into a "cumulative probability score" to arrive at the final totals.

For the results of the reputation survey, the data are highly skewed in favour of a small number of institutions at the top of the rankings. In the 2012-13 ranking, THE introduced an exponential component to increase differentiation between institutions lower down the scale.

In 2015, THE removed 649 papers with more than 1,000 authors from the citations indicator, which prevents individual very highly cited papers from skewing the citation score criteria of small institutions.

Also in 2015, THE blended equal measures of a country-adjusted and non-country-adjusted raw measure of citations scores. THE argue that this presents a 'more rigorous approach to international comparison of research publications'.

The move from Thomson Reuters to Scopus bibliometric assisted in UWA's significant rise in the 2015 ranking. At the time of the ranking Scopus covered significantly more Australian journals than Thomson Reuters, thereby increasing UWA’s score for papers per faculty member and citation scores.

the world university rankings 2016-2017 methodology

The world university rankings 2016-2017 methodology.

Subject Rankings

THE also conducts rankings by subject areas, with UWA ranked in the top 100 in two key fields.

Subject UWA 2022 Rank
Arts & humanities 176-200
Business & economics 151-175
Clinical, pre-clinical & health 101-125
Computer science 301-400
Education 126-150
Engineering & technology 126-150
Law 151-175
Life sciences 79
Physical sciences 101-125
Psychology 95
Social sciences 151-175

UWA's subjects rankings.

About the US News & World Ranking

US News & World – the US newspaper famous for its annual ranking of American universities – launched a global ranking system in 2014. In 2018, the ranking has refined its methodology each year since its inception; therefore, this year's results are not directly comparable to previous years'. Compared to the QS and THE rankings, the US News and World methodology has a greater focus on research, but still includes a reputational survey component.

Full USN&W rankings
Key 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
US N&W1131289588818679

US News & World Ranking for UWA.

Performance Indicators

Broad Indicator Indicator Weighting (%)
ReputationGlobal research reputation12.525
Regional research reputation12.5
Research ProductivityPublications1015
Books2.5
Conferences2.5
Citation MetricsNormalized citation impact1050
Normalized citation impact7.5
# publications in top 10% highly cited papers12.5
% publications in top 10% highly cited papers10
# publications in top 1% highly cited papers5
% publications in top 1% highly cited papers5
International CollaborationInternational collaboration 5
% publications with international collaboration5

Weighting of Performance Indicators.

Subject Rankings

US N&W also conducts rankings by subject areas, with UWA ranked in the top 200 in sixteen key fields:

Subject UWA 2021 Rank
Agricultural Science29
Arts and Humanities148
Biology and Biochemistry118
Biotechnology and Applied Microbiology93
Cardiac and Cardiovascular System103
Cell Biology191
Civil Engineering72
Clinical Medicine108
Economics and Business119
Endocrinology and Metabolism121
Engineering177
Environment/Ecology53
Geoscience 44
Immunology 152
Microbiology 167
Molecular Biology and Genetics 103
Neuroscience and Behavior 127
Oncology 184
Pharmacology and Toxicology 149
Plant and Animal Science6
Psychiatry/Psychology 71
Public, Environmental and Occupational Health 53
Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Medical Imaging 196
Social Sciences and Public Health 151
Space Science 106
Surgery 195

Subject areas ranked in the top 200.