The University of Newcastle has been ranked in the top 4 per cent of universities in the world by the 2012 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU)* released this week.

Based on the ARWU ranking scores, Newcastle is placed 356th in the world and 128th in the world for the field of ‘Engineering/Technology and Computer Science’.

Vice-Chancellor, Professor Caroline McMillen, said of the 9,000 plus universities across the world, the ARWU assessed 1,200 institutions and ranked the top 500.

“It is a remarkable achievement for the Hunter region to have a world-class university that ranks in the top 400 globally.

“Newcastle’s strong performance on the world stage is significant given the intense competition from internationally established universities for recognition of research performance by the ARWU ranking.

“Our academic and research performance has been weighed against the world’s best – the Ivy League and other leading universities in the US, the Russell Group in the UK and the ‘Group of 9’ in China.                             

“A significant number of the high ranking universities are 100 years old or more. As a young university under the age of 50 years, achieving 356th in the world on this prestigious university league table is an excellent result for Newcastle and is testament to our strengthening global research leadership.”

The ARWU ranking criteria includes: the number of highly cited researchers in 21 subject areas; the number of papers indexed across two major citation indices; the number of published research papers in the journals of Nature and Science; and Nobel Prizes awarded to alumni and to staff in specified fields.

The latest ARWU ranking follows the University of Newcastle’s rankings in 2012 in the top 50 universities in the world under the age of 50 by two other independent world ranking systems. 

Newcastle was placed number 45 by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings in its inaugural ‘100 Under 50’, which measured performance across teaching, research, citations, industry income and international outlook.

The QS World Rankings ‘Top 50 under 50’, placed Newcastle at number 33 of young universities in the world.

* Previously known as the Shanghai Jiao Tong Academic Ranking of World Universities.

For interviews with Professor McMillen contact Kate Robinson on 02 4921 5061 / 0408 115 467.